Kavala robber traced to Edirne
Greece has requested the extradition from Turkey of a Kavala businessman suspected of masterminding four mafia-style killings in northern Greece over the past 16 months as well as a twin bank robbery last week, a police source said yesterday. Andreas Chtenas, 45, is currently under police guard in a hospital in Edirne, western Turkey, where he sought refuge on Saturday after being shot in the leg during a gunfight with police in last Thursday’s armed bank heist in Eleftheroupolis, near Kavala. Chtenas entered Turkey with a false passport in the name of Antonios Dimitropoulos, claiming to have been shot when he got out of a restroom on the Greek side of the border. The police source said an international arrest warrant has been issued against Chtenas, who is expected to be handed over to the Greek authorities next week. Apart from the Eleftheroupolis armed robbery – for which four Albanians as well as Chtenas’s wife and son have been arrested and charged – the businessman is suspected of involvement in the summer 2001 execution of three men at a Thasos holiday villa, and another murder in Kavala in July.
