In Brief
TERROR QUERY
Police probing convict’s threat to court prosecutor Officers in the police’s counterterrorism unit yesterday were investigating whether appeals court prosecutor Yiannis Angelis might be at risk after Albanian convict Alket Rizai warned him that domestic terrorist group Sect of Revolutionaries had him in its sights. After Rizai and his girlfriend were handed heavy jail sentences on Thursday, Rizai turned to the prosecutor and shouted, «You’ll have to answer to the Sect of Revolutionaries.» Rizai was sentenced to 25 years and 10 months in jail for his escape from Korydallos Prison in a helicopter with Vassilis Palaiocostas in February 2009. His girlfriend Aspasia Mitropia was sentenced to 13 years and five months in jail for helping to organize the escape. Police are taking the threat seriously, as Sect of Revolutionaries has claimed responsibility for the murders of 41-year-old policeman Nektarios Savvas in June last year and journalist Sokratis Giolias in July of this year and has threatened to target more journalists, police officers as well as members of the judiciary. FATAL CROSSING Elderly motorist hit by train An elderly motorist was killed early yesterday when he drove onto a level crossing close to the town of Karditsa in central Greece and was hit by an oncoming train. Sources at Trainose, the operating arm of the Hellenic Railways Organization (OSE), cited witnesses as saying that the motorist overtook several other vehicles that were waiting at the bar while the light and sound warnings were in operation, and drove onto the train tracks. The accident came just a day after a young woman was seriously injured after being hit by a bus that had collided with a train on a level crossing near the village of Neohori, near the city of Xanthi in northeastern Greece. Remembrance Sunday The British Embassy is holding a service at St Paul’s Anglican Church on Filellinon Street near Syntagma Square at 10.15 a.m. tomorrow to commemorate the end of the First World War in 1918. Driver remanded The Greek driver of an intercity KTEL bus that plunged into a ravine in southern Albania on Monday night, killing nine people and injuring dozens more, was remanded in custody yesterday after appearing in court in the Albanian town of Fieri. The court refused the defense lawyer’s request for the driver to be released on 10,000 euros’ bail and decided to remand him until the date of the trial, which has yet to be set. The driver’s lawyer told the court that the driver lost control after the bus was hit by another vehicle. Murder suspects A 35-year-old Algerian man and two Palestinians were detained yesterday in connection with the brutal murder in May of a 40-year-old Egyptian national who had been working as an electrician in the district of Kallithea, south of central Athens. The victim was killed, cut into 28 pieces and disposed of in a suitcase that was later discovered next to a garbage dumpster in Kallithea. According to police, the suspects plotted to kill the Egyptian out of revenge as the latter had taken a job that they had sought to secure. Police are also seeking a 25-year-old Iraqi national believed to have been involved in the murder.
