In Brief
FRAUD ARREST
Former Norwegian consul to be charged on 62 counts Police in the northern town of Kavala yesterday arrested a businessman – formerly Norway’s honorary consul in Thessaloniki – on 62 charges including embezzlement, issuing dud checks, nonpayment of social security charges, and two court detention orders for nonpayment of debts. Police found on Marco Gavriilidis, 56, a Norwegian passport – with his own photograph but the name of Bengt Longva – which he had issued himself when he was consul. Gavriilidis, who declared himself unemployed and of no fixed abode, faces a Kavala prosecutor. LINE OF DUTY Monument to fallen policemen A monument to police officers who lost their lives in the line of duty was unveiled yesterday by President Costis Stephanopoulos outside the Attica Police headquarters on Alexandras Avenue. The monument, an initiative of the Attica police employees union, is a reminder of the debt owed by society to its police force, Public Order Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis said, adding that further measures to protect police officers and support bereaved families would be implemented soon. Nearly 30 policemen have been killed over the past 18 years. Lucky escape Seventy people – including the Kalamata football team – escaped virtually unscathed from a road accident just outside Tripolis in the central Peloponnese on Saturday morning, after the Athens-bound bus carrying the southern team’s 25-strong group overturned and crashed into a bus taking 45 people to Kalamata. The two bus drivers and eight passengers on the other bus were slightly injured. The footballers made it unharmed to the northern town of Serres for their scheduled afternoon match. Anti-NATO vandals A bus used by off-duty soldiers from Kosovo’s NATO-led force was vandalized yesterday by members of the Greek Communist Party’s youth group near Thessaloniki, police said. The protesters sprayed the bus with swastikas and graffiti, while the 25 Danish soldiers, who were not in uniform, were having lunch. Bravado overdose An argument between two unidentified men and two ethnic Greeks from the former Soviet Union outside a cafe in the Athens district of Peristeri on Saturday culminated in the injury of a passerby after one of the former duo fired a rifle at the ground because the latter pair refused to move their dog. The frustrated rifle-wielder and his companion fled on a motorbike. – The National Federation of Teachers’ Unions meets to decide on further protest action.
