In Brief
Omonia murder
Row between two men results in fatal stabbing of 21-year-old A 21-year-old man died following a stabbing near Omonia Square, central Athens, late on Sunday night, police said yesterday. According to witnesses, soon after two foreign men began arguing, one of the pair pulled out a knife and stabbed the other. The victim was taken to the Ippocrateio Hospital but died from his injuries. The alleged assailant was apprehended by police officers with the help of citizens who had witnessed the events. Hunger strike Health of ‘rioter’ deteriorating The life of Theodoros Iliopoulos, the only person remanded in custody after the riots that followed the shooting of a teenager by a police officer last December is in danger because he has been on hunger strike for more than a month, his lawyer said. Nikos Mavridis said that Iliopoulos is in a serious condition after refusing food for 38 days in protest at his arrest and detention. Iliopoulos was recently admitted to an intensive-care unit. His lawyer argues that authorities have failed to take into account statements given by five witnesses who claim he was not involved in any rioting. Dangerous laser Two boys aged 13 and 14 have been arrested on Rhodes for forcing a pilot of a commercial flight to abandon a landing at the Dodecanese island’s airport on August 15 because they aimed a laser pointer at the airplane’s cockpit. The pilot of the flight from Alexandroupoli was forced to go around and land on his second attempt. The teenagers’ parents were also arrested for neglecting the care of their children. NATO operation Greece will be one of several countries contributing warships to the new NATO operation launched yesterday to combat piracy off the Horn of Africa. Operation Ocean Shield succeeds Allied Protector, in which Greece also took part. «No time frame has been set for this long-term operation, which will last as long as it is deemed necessary,» Major Stefano Sbaccanti, a spokesman for NATO’s Joint Command Lisbon, told Agence France-Presse. Superjet More than 300 passengers who boarded the Superjet ferry at Piraeus yesterday morning with the aim of disembarking at Milos, Folegandros, Santorini, Amorgos or Koufonisi were instead forced to get off the vessel at Sifnos after it developed a technical fault. It was the same problem (damage to a section that prevents water from entering the engine room) that had temporarily put the ferry out of action three weeks ago. The captain was still waiting for repairs to be carried out last night, meaning that the passengers had to find other ways to continue their journeys. Armed raids A supermarket manager in the town of Hanioti in Halkidiki, northern Greece, was slightly injured yesterday after being shot by armed robbers. The two assailants made off with an amount described as being in the «tens of thousands» of euros. An armed robber also held up a supermarket in the Harilaou district of Thessaloniki yesterday, forcing employees to give him 400 euros in cash from the register. There was also an armed robbery at the offices of the IKA social security fund in the Evosmos neighborhood of the northern city. The robbers took 5,800 euros.
