In Brief
Tourist drowning
Body of British woman, 52, found off coast of Zakynthos Authorities on the Ionian island of Zakynthos said yesterday that they had recovered the drowned body of a 52-year-old British woman off Laganas, a resort on the island’s southern coast very popular with British holidaymakers. The body of the woman, identified by the Athens News Agency as Sheila Jack, was found floating just a few feet from the shore by a group of tourists in a dinghy yesterday morning. Bomb hoax Call closes Corinth court Police in Corinth evacuated the city’s courthouses yesterday morning after being briefed by a local newspaper that had received a warning from an anonymous caller saying that a bomb had been planted on the premises. Officers cleared the court complex just after 8 a.m. immediately after the call, causing some concern among those in attendance but no panic. The courtrooms were reopened about an hour later, after a search failed to turned up any suspect devices. Coffee break-in A 57-year-old man was in a Serres hospital yesterday with heavy bruising after two men tied him to a chair in his home in the village of Karperi, near the northern city, before beating him up and fleeing with his television and DVD player. Police said the 57-year-old told them he had invited the strangers to his home for coffee. The pair then bound and beat the man before ransacking his home. They found no cash and so fled with the TV and DVD player. Takings taken Police in Thessaloniki yesterday were seeking the two perpetrators who stopped a vehicle being driven by a supermarket employee and forced him at gunpoint to drive to a remote area and hand over an envelope containing cash. The perpetrators then forced the man out of his car and drove off with it, abandoning it a few kilometers outside the city. The man told police he been entrusted with the envelope – which contained the supermarket’s takings – and had been on his way to deposit it at a bank in the city center. Farmers restless Representatives of farmers’ unions said yesterday that they might stage strike action next month after talks with Agricultural Development and Food Minister Katerina Batzeli failed to yield a compromise. The unionists want to be paid outstanding compensation immediately but the minister said it could not be dispensed before the end of August. Contraband smokes Officers of Attica police’s financial crimes squad said yesterday that they had confiscated 1.1 million packets of contraband cigarettes from a warehouse located off the Athens-Lamia national road near Schimatari, some 60 kilometers north of Athens. Acting on a tip-off, police raided the warehouse and turned up hundreds of plastic barrels bearing labels indicating that they contained olives from Kalamata, in the Peloponnese, but which were in fact filled with the contraband cigarettes. Officers also discovered 46,940 euros in cash. They said the haul represents some 3 million euros in lost customs tariffs and charges.
