In Brief
TRANSPORT DISRUPTION
Metro Line 3 stops at Ethniki Amyna station as of today From today, trains on Line 3 of the metro will stop at Ethniki Amyna, as work begins to create three new stations. There will be no service to Athens International Airport, while construction work, expected to last about six months, is carried out between Ethniki Amyna and Halandri. Commuters will be able to use two new express bus routes, X5 and X6, to travel between Ethniki Amyna and Halandri or to Doukissis Plakentias. Buses will depart every five to 10 minutes. The X94 and X95 buses will run from Ethniki Amyna to the airport. Also, there will be no service between the Tavros and Omonia stations on the Kifissia-Piraeus electric railway (ISAP) this weekend. THESSALONIKI FIREBOMBS Arsonists strike targets again A group of arsonists targeted a sentry box outside the Turkish Consulate in Thessaloniki early yesterday but caused minimal damage and no injuries. Shortly after the attack, several garbage dumpsters were torched in two different parts of the northern city and a Molotov cocktail bomb was hurled at the entrance to a nightclub that was closed. Psomiadis conviction A Thessaloniki court yesterday imposed a suspended one-year jail sentence on the northern city’s prefect, Panayiotis Psomiadis, for reducing the size of a fine imposed on a local gas station found to have been diluting its fuel. Charges were brought against the prefect in 2005 by a former director of the prefecture’s trade office. Child abuse An Athens prosecutor yesterday brought criminal charges against a 57-year-old man alleged to have raped his 10-year-old niece. The defendant is to defend himself before an investigating magistrate over the next few days. Meanwhile, a 42-year-old charged with sexually molesting his daughter’s 7-year-old friend in Menidi, northern Athens, was remanded in custody. Illegal antiquities Police in northern Greece yesterday were questioning a 47-year-old man from Halkidiki after finding more than 2,000 illegally excavated antiquities in his home, store and car. The seized artifacts include more than 1,500 ancient coins and jewelry as well as hundreds of clay and bronze items, including sections of statuettes and vases. Mouse trap The purchasing manager of a major supermarket chain yesterday received a suspended jail sentence after a court deemed him responsible for the presence of a dead mouse in a bottle of beer purchased by a customer in May 2006. The customer, who was hospitalized for food poisoning after drinking the beer, took legal action against the store and received 30,000 euros in damages. Cyprus ship Cyprus authorities said yesterday that the cargo of a suspect ship moored off Limassol was being unloaded and would be stored temporarily on the island. Israel claimed that the Russian-owned, Cyprus-flagged Monchegorsk had been sent from Iran with a cargo of weapons destined for Gaza’s Hamas rulers. Diplomatic sources said the ship contained conventional weapons.
