In Brief
SEWAGE DEATHS
Two men connecting Kifissia septic tank ‘killed by fumes’ Two workers who were helping to connect the septic tank of a kindergarten in the northern Athens suburb of Kifissia with the area’s main sewage network died yesterday after apparently inhaling toxic fumes. The two workers, one from India and the other from Nepal, were working for a contractor carrying out a project for the Athens Water and Sewage Company (EYDAP). After collapsing, both employees were taken to the hospital but were declared dead upon arrival. The foreman and the employee operating the backhoe were both arrested. Some pollutants in septic tanks convert to hydrogen sulfide, a toxic gas. It was not clear if this is what caused the men’s deaths. TURKISH INTERFERENCE Frontex helicopter hassled again For the second time in a week, a helicopter participating in an operation by the European Union’s border-monitoring agency Frontex, to curb illegal immigration in the Aegean, yesterday received a series of emergency signals via Turkish radar warning that the aircraft had entered Turkish air space, Greek defense officials said. The Latvian helicopter had been in Greek air space near the island of Farmakonisi. Dealers traced An operation that began with police in Germany detecting a package from Argentina containing cocaine that was destined for Greece ended with officers in Athens arresting one Greek and one Nigerian on suspicion that they were selling drugs in the area around Omonia Square, in the city center. German authorities tipped off their counterparts in Greece when they found 440 grams of cocaine in the package at Frankfurt Airport. The package was collected in Athens by a 24-year-old Greek. Police were lying in wait and arrested the unnamed suspect. He, in turn, led them to a Nigerian man who was allegedly to have distributed the drug. The suspect had been arrested in the past for drug offenses, police said. Fatal shooting A 65-year-old hotel owner presented himself to police in Kalamata, southwestern Greece, late on Sunday and admitted that he had shot an elderly couple, both livestock breeders, killing one of them. The shooting is alleged to have taken place earlier on Sunday in the area of Palaia Vrysi in Messenia. The circumstances that led to the hotel owner shooting the 72-year-old man and his 63-year-old wife are not clear. The woman died while she was being transferred to the hospital. The man is being treated for his injuries. The gunman fled the scene but later turned himself in to police in the presence of his lawyer, while also handing over the gun allegedly used in the shooting. PAO supporters killed Two fans of the Panathinaikos soccer club were killed in a road accident early yesterday as they returned from the team’s game at Panthrakikos in Komotini, northeastern Greece. The accident occurred at about 5 a.m. when the minivan in which nine supporters were traveling crashed into three trucks at a rest area near Atalanti in central Greece. The other seven fans suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries. The names of the two fatalities were not made public but authorities said that they were aged 23 and 24.
