In Brief
Racist chants
Lawyers lodge lawsuit against special forces unit A group of lawyers advocating the rights of refugees and immigrants yesterday filed a suit against the members of a navy special operations unit who were filmed chanting racist and nationalist slogans during a military parade on March 25. The group, which described the behavior as «unacceptable,» said it was taking legal action because authorities had so far not shown any intention of punishing those concerned despite it being illegal to publicly express racist ideas. Baby killed Infant hit by bus in Aegaleo A 5-month-old baby was run over and killed by a bus in Aegaleo, western Athens, yesterday. Authorities said that the baby fell onto the road when its pram overturned at the junction of Iera Odos and Papanastasiou Street. Rowdy Roma Police in Sparta, in the Peloponnese, said yesterday that they had recovered around 60,000 euros worth of copper stolen from local businesses following a raid on a Roma settlement in the city at the weekend. Officers said they were seeking two Roma men, aged 36 and 28, believed to have orchestrated the thefts. The first attempt by police to raid the settlement, on Thursday night, was thwarted after dozens of Roma residents reacted to a warning shot by disarming the officers and vandalizing their patrol car. No injuries were reported. Abandoned son A 40-year-old Bulgarian man faced a Kavala prosecutor yesterday after allegedly abandoning his 6-year-old son at a farm on the outskirts of the northern city last Wednesday. The boy was located by police in a patrol car on Good Friday. Police said they traced the 40-year-old father, with his other two children, in the nearby city of Xanthi. All three children are being cared for at a children’s hostel in Kavala while police attempt to contact their mother, believed to be in Bulgaria. Loverdos better The condition of Labor and Social Insurance Minister Andreas Loverdos, hospitalized on Sunday with a stomach inflammation, has «visibly improved,» doctors said yesterday. Bomb victim An 11-year-old Afghan girl who suffered serious injuries to her eyes after they were pierced by shards of a bomb that killed her brother at the end of last month is to undergo another operation, doctors said yesterday. The doctors did not give a prognosis for the girl. Smoked out Three people were arrested at a warehouse outside Thessaloniki yesterday as police seized some 1.5 million packs of contraband cigarettes. Officers said that a 58-year-old man, his 29-year-old son-in-law and an accomplice aged 31 were arrested on suspicion of smuggling the cigarettes into the country without paying the necessary tax. The cigarettes were found in two trucks with fake license plates parked outside the warehouse. Family tragedy A 53-year-old teacher was killed in Kalambaka, central Greece, yesterday when he was struck by a plow being pulled behind a tractor that his 85-year-old father was driving.
