In Brief
Helicopter escape
Pilot, three guards face second trial after prosecutor’s appeal A Piraeus prosecutor yesterday lodged an appeal against last month’s court ruling to acquit the pilot of a helicopter used in the escape from Korydallos Prison of two dangerous criminals and three guards who had faced charges of complicity. Only Nikos Karagiorgos, who had been in charge of Korydallos’s C Wing, received a suspended six-year sentence for negligence in connection with the escape of Vassilis Palaiocostas and Alket Rizai. ASOPOS INSPECTION MPs’ committee takes up case Parliament’s environmental committee is planning to visit the area around the industrial zone of Oinofyta, central Greece, believed to have been severely contaminated by the polluted Asopos River, the committee’s president Kyriakos Mitsotakis said yesterday. Mitsotakis did not specify a date for the visit. European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas has criticized authorities for failing to stop local firms from dumping toxic waste into the Asopos, which also supplies Athenians with drinking water. Fatal fire Firemen recovered the charred remains of a 37-year-old Albanian woman from a fourth-floor apartment in Megara, west of Athens, after a fire broke out there in the early hours of yesterday. The woman’s body was found in her bed. According to sources police were called in to take over the investigation from firemen, suggesting that foul play might have been involved in the woman’s death. Police were yesterday seeking the woman’s husband and two sons who are said to have lived in the same apartment. Railway suspension There will be no service on the Kifissia-Piraeus electric railway between Tavros and Ano Patissia station this Saturday and Sunday, it was announced yesterday. Work to replace the track means that a bus replacement service (X1) will run between Tavros and Ano Patissia. For more information, passengers can ring 210.329.3000. Bank torched Unidentified arsonists destroyed a branch of National Bank in the small town of Kounoupidiana in the prefecture of Hania, Crete, early yesterday after smashing the facade of the building and throwing a large petrol bomb inside. The entire branch, with all its equipment, was razed, according to police who said the damage was worth some 100,000 euros. The perpetrators are believed to be the same as those who torched a Postal Savings Bank branch in central Hania in January. Kalamata quake An earthquake measuring 4.2 on the Richter scale shook Kalamata in the Peloponnese just before 10 a.m. yesterday. The tremor did not cause any damage or injuries. The Athens Observatory said that the epicenter of the quake was 175 kilometers southwest of Athens but added that there was no cause for alarm. Murder suspect A 41-year Romanian man was arrested in Piraeus yesterday on suspicion of murdering a fellow countryman in the port city earlier this month and then setting fire to the abandoned building where he dumped his body. The incident occurred on March 6 and the suspect was caught after trying to sell the victim’s car, police said.
