Athens racetrack execution solved
The younger brother of one of Greece’s most notorious convicts has confessed to the gang-style execution of a racehorse owner outside the Athens racecourse in May, police said yesterday. Dimitris Nastoulis, 23, who was arrested last week for a fatal New Year’s Day bar stabbing, said he shot Dimitris Michailidis, 32, and his 36-year-old brother Vassilis – also a racehorse owner – on May 24 due to «personal differences arising from the organization of races,» a police statement said. Dimitris Michailidis died immediately after being shot outside the Neo Faliron racetrack by a gunman on the back of a motorcycle. His brother survived with groin and leg wounds. Nastoulis’s elder brother, Costas, is serving a life sentence for murders, armed robberies and extortion, and is believed to have kept his blackmail business going from behind bars. Dimitris Nastoulis was arrested on Thursday in a flat in Zografou, Athens, for the murder, outside a bar in Elefsina early on New Year’s Day, of Vangelis Panoliakos, 22, who was fatally stabbed in a brawl that started with an ice-cube fight in the bar.
