NEWS

Officers suspended over car trunk arrest

Athens police officers captured on film while bundling an uncooperative Albanian suspect into the trunk of a patrol car have been suspended and an investigation will be held into the incident, the government said yesterday. Acting spokesman Telemachos Hytiris said the government «condemns any act of violence, especially from the forces of law and order.» Early on Thursday, officers from the Kolonos police station in western central Athens responded to a complaint from residents about a street fight and found an Albanian man prostrate on the sidewalk of Kallipoleos Street. When he refused to get in the patrol car, the suspect was handcuffed and stuffed into the trunk – which was then closed. The scene was filmed by a neighbor, sent to Alter TV and aired on its news bulletin. Police said the man, who was wanted for procurement, resisted arrest and swore at them. The way in which Turkey will choose to react to Cyprus’s impending accession – if the political problem has not been resolved in the meantime – will be a crucial test for its administration. The post-Kemal regime is flirting with the idea of causing tension, hoping that it will thereby give the Europeans (who do not wish to inherit the Cyprus dispute) a pretext for torpedoing the island’s accession.

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