In Brief
MINISTER ILLNESS
Loverdos admitted to hospital suffering from stomach pains Labor and Social Insurance Minister Andreas Loverdos was admitted to the NIMITS hospital in Athens after complaining of stomach pains. Loverdos, who had been traveling in the Imathia prefecture of northern Greece, was initially taken to a hospital in Veria at 11 p.m. on Sunday for tests but then had to be moved to a hospital in Naoussa as the CAT scanner in Veria was not working. Loverdos left Naoussa at about 4 a.m. yesterday and was admitted to the NIMITS when he arrived in Athens. A statement by doctors late last night said that Loverdos was in «very good» condition and was being treated for an inflammation. BANK BREAK-IN Gang caught red-handed Two men, aged 61 and 53, and a 41-year-old woman have been arrested after being caught red-handed trying to break into a bank on Kifissias Avenue in Halandri, northeastern Athens. Police said that the arrests were down to luck as officers on a routine patrol spotted the two men carrying a ladder to the rear of the branch of Millennium Bank early on Sunday. They also noticed the woman, allegedly acting as a lookout, riding a scooter nearby. The woman and the 61-year-old man were arrested on the spot but police had to chase the 53-year-old as he tried to escape on another motorcycle. Tzannetakis death Tzannis Tzannetakis, a former prime minister who briefly led a coalition government during a political crisis in 1989, is to be buried tomorrow following his death on Thursday at the age of 82. Tzannetakis was premier from July to October 1989, in a government that brought together his conservative New Democracy party and the Coalition of the Left and Progress. Fatal chase Police in northern Greece are looking for the driver of a car without license plates after he fled a gas station in Litohoro, Pieria, without paying, prompting an employee to give chase in his vehicle only for him to be killed in a crash moments later. Witnesses said the car pulled into the gas station at about 6.15 p.m. and the driver asked the 56-year-old attendant to fill up the vehicle. Once his tank was full, the suspect sped off without paying. The employee then gave chase along a side road of the Athens-Thessaloniki highway but lost control of his car and crashed into a rock. Mosque targeted Police on Crete have been examining the remnants of a homemade bomb that detonated early on Friday outside a Muslim cultural center in the prefecture of Iraklio, causing minor damage but no injuries. Officers recovered the remains of a gas canister outside the center, used as a mosque by local Muslims. In a separate development, police found another homemade bomb outside the town hall in Arkalohori. The device, comprising 5.5 kilograms of explosives and two detonators, was deactivated. Crossing the line A policeman from Attica was arrested by border guards in northwestern Greece late on Friday as he tried to enter the country with an Albanian woman who had forged travel documents. Authorities believe the officer was aiding a human trafficking ring and was due to drive the woman to Athens for an unspecified sum. The policeman has been suspended.
