In Brief
Illegal bets
Couple said to have made huge profits on World Cup Police in Pieria, northern Greece, yesterday detained a 35-year-old woman and a 40-year-old man alleged to have made hundreds of thousands of euros by organizing illegal bets on World Cup soccer matches. A search of the couple’s store turned up a computer containing the details of financial transactions worth 683,881 euros, according to police. Officers also confiscated about 5,000 euros in cash and dozens of coupons listing World Cup soccer matches. Over the past few weeks, police in Thessaloniki and Corinth have detained three people on charges of making thousands of euros in illicit profits by organizing illegal bets on soccer games. Missing ‘spy’ Nicosia defends actions Cyprus President Dimitris Christofias said on Saturday that the island’s authorities were not to blame for the disappearance of an alleged Russian spy who was arrested, given bail and then disappeared all within a day on the divided island last week. Christofias said that 54-year-old Christopher Metsos, who is wanted by the FBI, «appears to have fled» the island but insisted Cypriot authorities had not mishandled the case. Christofias rebuffed US criticism over Metsos’s release, saying US authorities had been too slow in providing Cyprus police with the documents necessary to warrant his detention. In a related development, US authorities asked Nicosia to hand over personal belongings seized from Metsos. ISAP disruption Pireaus-bound trains on the Piraeus-Kifissia urban electric railway (ISAP) will not be making stops at the Perissos, Pefkakia and Kallithea stations today as engineering works on the line continue. The section of the line between Nerantziotissa and Irini is to remain closed until the end of the month due to engineering works, sources told Kathimerini over the weekend. Passengers can use the X16 replacement bus service for the Nerantziotissa-Irini section. Hospital sit-in Doctors and staff at the Nikaia General Hospital, near Piraeus, are today due to stage a sit-in at their workplace to demand back pay and protest shortages in pharmaceuticals, laboratory equipment and other supplies. Doctors at the Attikon Hospital in Haidari, northwest of Athens, and at the Aghia Sofia Children’s Hospital in Goudi, north of the city center, are also threatening action over staff shortages. Murder suspect The Greek Police said on Saturday that they had handed over to their Cypriot counterparts a 44-year-old Greek national wanted by the Cypriot police in connection with the murder of a 67-year-old cabaret owner in Limassol just over a year ago. The victim, Michalis Kakathymis, was shot dead at point-blank range while sitting in a cafe in the resort, on the island’s southern coast. The Cyprus Police press spokesman, Michalis Katsounotos, did not name the suspect but noted that he was born in Iraq. The 44-year-old was to face a court yesterday.
