In Brief
Teen killers
Two girls held for stabbing man, 80, to death for 10 euros Two teenage girls from a village near Serres, in northern Greece, are to face an investigating magistrate on Friday charged with the murder of an 80-year-old neighbor whom they are alleged to have robbed of 10 euros. Police said the girls admitted to knifing the man 15 times at his home in Kerkini before taking the money and fleeing. The girls were given until Friday to prepare their defense. FATAL BLAZES One dead in fire at Roma camp A 7-year-old girl died in a fire at a Roma camp in Aspropyrgos, west of Athens, yesterday. It was not immediately clear what caused the fire to break out in the shack in which the Gypsy family lived. The girl’s grandfather suffered slight burns and was taken to a nearby hospital. The neighboring shack was also damaged in the blaze. A 29-year-old also died in a house fire on Crete yesterday. The Albanian national was pulled from his home early yesterday after neighbors called the fire service but he had already died of smoke inhalation. Stance on Gaza Deputy Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas yesterday reiterated Greece’s conviction that Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip should end, stressing that the cornerstone of the government’s foreign policy was «full respect of international law.» «A settlement must finally be arrived at in the Middle East. We must do everything to ensure the talks continue despite the condemnable events of the past few days,» Droutsas said, referring to a raid on six vessels. three of which were Greek, carrying humanitarian aid by Israeli commandos last Monday, an offensive that resulted in nine deaths. Child porn Officers of Attica’s electronic crimes squad yesterday detained two men, aged 28 and 46, in connection with the manufacture and trade of child pornography. Police arrested the younger man after a search of his home turned up computer hard drives and DVDS featuring photographs of children being sexually abused. Police arrested the 46-year-old on suspicion of having participated in some of the abuse depicted in the photographs. Blind debt The Health Ministry yesterday asked a Thessaloniki prosecutor to investigate how a school for the blind in the northern city ran up massive debts. Deputy Health Minister Fofi Gennimata did not reveal the amount owed by the school, known as Ilios, but said that every effort would be made to ensure that the children’s education would not suffer. Lake Kastoria Costas Liantsis, the prefect of Kastoria in northern Greece, presented a plan yesterday aimed at cleaning the local lake. According to the scheme, measures would also be taken to prevent untreated waste from ending up in Lake Kastoria and to reduce the amount of pesticides being used by local farmers. Liantsis said that he would be passing the plan on to the Environment Ministry in the hope that it could carry out the appropriate feasibility studies.
