In Brief
SCHOOLBOY DIES
Teenager killed by train while playing with friends in Serres A 16-year-old boy was hit and killed by a train at a railway station near Serres, northern Greece, authorities said yesterday. The teenager had been playing with friends at the Skoutousa train station but then sat down on the edge of the platform and was struck in the head by the metal steps of a passing train, according to police. The schoolboy was not named. LISTED EXTREMISTS EU places Revolutionary Struggle on its danger list of terror groups The European Union placed the extremist group Revolutionary Struggle on its terrorist list, which automatically freezes the organization’s financial assets and funding. Revolutionary Struggle has claimed a number of terrorist attacks since first appearing in 2003, including a missile strike this January on the US Embassy in Athens. The group also claimed responsibility for an armed raid on an Athens police precinct in May. The EU terror list comprises more than 50 groups and individuals, including the armed Basque separatist organization ETA, Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers and the Islamist group Hamas. TOURIST SHOT German woman hit by stray bullet A 47-year-old female tourist from Germany was injured late on Thursday in Hania, Crete, when she was hit in the stomach by a stray bullet, police said yesterday. Police did not give any information regarding the shot fired. Doctors said the injury was not life-threatening as the bullet did not damage any vital organs. The woman was shot outside the hotel at which she was staying. Illegal passengers Four Bulgarian women have been arrested in northern Greece for allegedly trying to smuggle five illegal immigrants from Iraq into the country in two cars, police said yesterday. The cars were stopped on the Xanthi-Kavala national road and the five Iraqis were found to be in possession of forged documents. The women were aged between 23 and 24 from the Bulgarian port city of Burgas. Officers confiscated the two cars that the woman used to transport the migrants into Greece Bank heists A gang of four armed assailants held up a branch of National Bank in central Thessaloniki yesterday and made off with 24,120 euros in cash, police said. According to police records, it was the 25th armed robbery of a bank or post office so far this year. In 2006, a total of 39 such robberies were committed, 13 of which were solved. University attack A group of some 50 youths destroyed electronic surveillance equipment at a university building in Ioannina, northwestern Greece, police said yesterday. Armed with hammers and crowbars, the assailants destroyed the electronic system while also causing damage to the building. A council of the university’s administrative officers condemned the attack, noting that a large amount of equipment had recently been stolen from teaching rooms and laboratories. Cyprus extradition A court in Cyprus yesterday granted a request by US authorities for the extradition of a fugitive doctor accused of fatally poisoning his wife with cyanide in 2005. The court rejected defence lawyers’ claims that Yazeed Essa, 38, would face the death penalty if he was returned to the US state of Ohio. US authorities have assured the Cypriot judiciary that Essa will not face the death penalty. Essa disappeared before his indictment in connection with the murder of his wife Rosemarie, who died in her car in what was initially though to have been a traffic accident. Armed robbery An automatic payment machine in Thessaloniki, where power bills can be paid, was robbed by two armed men yesterday, police said. The two assailants, who fled the scene on a motorbike, made off with about 55,000 euros in cash, authorities added. No one was hurt in the robbery.
