In Brief
EXARCHIA ATTACK
Driver escapes injury when luxury car is set upon, torched The driver of a luxury car narrowly escaped injury when his vehicle was attacked while passing through the central Athens neighborhood of Exarchia yesterday. Police said that a group of self-styled anarchists who were returning from the May Day rally set upon the car on Stournari Street. They attacked the vehicle with rocks and pieces of wood before throwing a Molotov cocktail that set the car alight. The car was totally destroyed but the driver managed to make it out safely. No arrests were made. DIRTY MAYORS Convictions over street sewage A court in Larissa, central Greece, on Thursday handed down 15-month jail sentences against two former mayors and a current mayor from the region who were found guilty of failing to provide an adequate wastewater disposal system which resulted in some citizens emptying their sewage tanks into the street. The current mayor of Nikaia, Rizos Komitsis, the former mayor of Koilada, Athanassios Bardas, and the former mayor of Gonnoi, Christos Karanastasis were sentenced. The European Commission has threatened Greece with legal action over its lax waste management procedures. Kidnap arrests Eight people aged between 26 and 42 have been arrested at Thessaloniki train station and in Serres, northern Greece, on suspicion of trafficking migrants and holding three of them for ransom. Police revealed yesterday that they made the arrests after a 27-year-old man in Thessaloniki reported that three relatives were being held against their will and that people smugglers had demanded 2,000 euros for the release of each victim. Necklace snatcher An off-duty border guard arrested a thief on Thursday after seeing him snatch a gold necklace from a 72-year-old woman in Thessaloniki. The pensioner was slightly injured during the incident, which happened in the city center. Track collision A man was seriously injured early Thursday when a train crashed into a car at a level crossing near the small town of Rio in the Peloponnese. The train, which had been en route to Kiato from Patras, hit the car after it failed to stop at the barrier. Dead bear Conservationists on Thursday recovered the body of a brown bear, a protected species, from the side of the Kozani-Kastoria national highway near Neapoli. The bear, a 10-year-old male adult that weighed 220 kilos, had been hit by a car. The motorist was unharmed, though the vehicle sustained heavy damage. Animal rights groups said it was the second brown bear to be killed on the country’s roads in 24 hours. Businessman shot The Greek president of Serbian sugar producer Sunoco, Spyridon Pyrgidis, was in the intensive-care unit at a hospital in Novisad yesterday after being shot four times in the stomach by intruders who broke into his home in the Serbian city on Wednesday. Police said they believed the culprits were robbers. Doctors said they believed Pyrgidis would recover, as none of the four bullets had entered any of his vital organs or arteries.
