In Brief
Fifth case
Man, 30, tests positive for H1N1 on return from US A 30-year-old Greek man who returned to Athens from New York over the weekend has become the fifth person in Greece to test positive for swine flu, health authorities revealed yesterday. The man, whose identity was not revealed, was under observation in Athens’s Sotiria hospital, according to doctors who did not give any details about his condition yesterday. Meanwhile in Nicosia, authorities on Saturday confirmed that a 39-year-old woman who had arrived to Cyprus from the US was the island’s first case of swine flu. The woman was admitted to a hospital in Limassol on Friday after complaining of flu symptoms. A second person who had travelled with the woman was also «under investigation,» authorities said. Asylum scam Police official, wife, caught An officer from the police’s immigration department and his wife were in detention yesterday after being charged with taking payment from immigrants in exchange for speeding up their applications for asylum. According to police, the couple had been pocketing 600 euros from immigrants keen to jump the massive lines outside the capital’s Aliens’ Bureau on Petrou Ralli Street. The pair were arrested on Friday night after allegedly accepting 1,200 euros as a deposit from four immigrants. They had taken cash from another eight migrants, police said. Ex-king’s operation Greece’s former king, Constantine, was recovering from a successful heart bypass operation in London, doctors said on Saturday. The deposed monarch, who is 68 years old, underwent the operation on Friday at a private hospital in north London, the surgeon who performed the procedure said in a statement posted on the ex-king’s website. Constantine was Greece’s monarch from 1964 until 1967, when he was deposed after a failed attempt to overthrow the military dictatorship. Weapons arsenal A 39-year-old former army officer on Saturday faced a prosecutor on charges of illegally possessing weapons after a police raid on his home in Vouliagmeni, a coastal suburb of Athens, turned up a large number of guns, explosives, hand grenades and ammunition. The suspect claimed to have purchased all his weaponry from a store selling military equipment in Athens, which he failed to identify. He might also face charges of trading in illegally acquired antiquities after officers found four amphoras in his possession. Athens explosion Police on Saturday were investigating the cause of a powerful explosion at a store selling lighting fixtures in the Athens district of Neos Cosmos, which completely destroyed the premises as well as causing lesser damage to adjacent buildings and parked cars but no injuries. Initial reports suggested that the blast had been caused by a fuel leak, but the possibility of foul play had not been ruled out by police late yesterday.
