In Brief
Bizarre suicide
Man found hanging from tree after trying to strangle ‘friend’ A 33-year-old man who allegedly tried to strangle a family friend for reasons that yesterday remained unclear was found a few hours later hanging from a tree near a cliffside close to the resort of Loutraki. The female victim, also 33, told police that she had been in the passenger seat of the man’s car – en route to Athens from Corinth – when he attacked her. The woman passed out and came to on the side of a road near Loutraki where her attacker is alleged to have abandoned her. A passing motorist picked her up and took her to hospital where she was recovering yesterday. ISAP disruptions Tavros-Piraeus section affected The Kifissia-Piraeus electric railway (ISAP) yesterday announced that ongoing engineering work would disrupt services between the Tavros and Piraeus stations this weekend and next. Commuters will be able to use their tickets on the X11 shuttle bus that will service the stations on the affected section. Minor quake An earthquake measuring 4.2 on the Richter scale was recorded off the coast of Evia early yesterday but there were no reports of injuries or damage. According to Athens Observatory’s Geodynamic Institute, the tremor struck just after 9 a.m. It was felt in parts of Athens. Betting shop raid Undercover police officers posing as customers on Wednesday night raided an Internet cafe in Megalopoli, in the Peloponnese, following a tip-off that it was being used as a gambling den with links to betting firms abroad. Tripoli police arrested the 38-year-old owner, his 47-year-old accomplice and two customers who are alleged to have been playing illegal games. They also seized the shop’s six computers, 7,500 euros, and the shop’s customer file. Weather woes Heavy rainstorms expected to hit western Crete and Messinia last night are forecast to continue throughout the day today in Crete, around Kythera, the southern Cyclades, Dodecanese as well as many parts of the mainland, the northern Sporades and Evia. Showers are expected too in northern and eastern Attica. Later in the day the bad weather is expected to spread to the eastern Aegean, meteorologists said. Children’s homes A Children’s Ombudsman team that visited two state institutions for chronically ill children found them severely understaffed. The team, accompanied by psychologist May Papoulia, the wife of President Karolos Papoulias, found that some children at the Athens Center for Chronically Ill Children in Skaramanga, and the Children’s Care Center in Lehaina, Ileia, were being tied to their beds or otherwise restrained to prevent them injuring themselves, as there was insufficient staff to supervise them. Ground Zero service Archbishop Demetrios of America is to hold a memorial service today at Ground Zero at the site of Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in New York on the eighth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. The Orthodox Church is the only religious edifice to have been destroyed in the 2001 attack.
