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news without borders
Riots, looting as Athens
hit by new protests
ATHENS: Police clashed with demonstrators and
groups of looters across Athens yesterday as
the Greek government confronted a sixth day of
protests over the police killing of a schoolboy.
Demonstrators clashed with security forces
outside the country’s biggest prison and a uni-
versity in central Athens while police said groups
of youths attacked stores in several districts or
blocked main roads.
Formal voluntary homicide charges against
the police officer accused of shooting 15-year-
old Andreas Grigoropoulos failed to stem public
anger and Greek embassies in other countries
have also become a target for protests. But under
fire prime minister Costas Karamanlis went to a
European Union summit in Brussels.
A clash at Koyrdallos prison in a western Ath-
ens suburb blew up after protesters threw rocks
and other missiles at police who fired tear gas to
force the protesters back, a prison guard said.
Demonstrators later staged a sitdown protest
in front of the prison amid more confrontations
with security forces.
Police said there was also unrest at the Athens
agriculture university, which has been occupied
by students, and that rampaging youths were
attacking stores in the upmarket Nea Smyrni and
Galatsi districts of the capital.
School students also blocked several main
roads in Athens.
More than 100 schools and some 15 university
campuses remain occupied by youth demonstra-
tors in Athens and the second city of Thessaloniki,
with student groups having announced a major
rally for today.
Slogans such as “state killers”, “murderers,
you will pay”, “democracy gives arms, cops
assassinate” and “Silence only shows
complicity” are splashed across banners
hanging outside the elite Athens Polytech-
nic building.
Six days of unrest in cities across
Greece since Grigoropoulos was fatally
shot in Athens have left dozens of injured
and scores of banks, stores and public buildings
destroyed, badly damaged by fire, or looted.
Police have confronted riots every night since
the death.
Athens police officer Epaminondas Korkoneas
was charged on Wednesday with voluntary
homicide – which under Greek law does not
necessarily involve premeditation.
The officer, whose partner has been charged
with complicity, has claimed self defence with
ballistics analysis indicating a ricochet bullet hit
the schoolboy, lawyers said.
Demonstrators and left wing unions have
sought to focus the public anger against the
right wing government, whose popularity has
plummeted in recent months because of the
economic crisis and a series of political scan-
dals.
A general strike on Wednesday brought much
of the country to a standstill and badly disrupted
flights in and out of Greece.
The socialist opposition has also stepped up
calls for Karamanlis to quit and call new elections,
ignoring his appeals for national unity against the
worst unrest Greece has seen since the end of a
military dictatorship in 1974.
Karamanlis, who went to Brussels for a key
EU summit, now faces intense domestic political
pressure, with just a single seat majority in the
Greek parliament. He has vowed to crack down
EPAPIX
A Bulgarian man holds a picture of Greek
teenager Grigoropoulos outside the Greek
embassy building in Sofia, Bulgaria.
on the violence and appealed for national unity,
but experts said his future was uncertain.
Korkoneas, 37, was charged on Wednesday
night with voluntary homicide and “illegal use” of
his service weapon. He was ordered to remain in
custody by an investigating magistrate.
His partner, Vassilios Saraliotis, 31, was
charged with being an accomplice and will also
remain in custody. The pair have been held since
Sunday.
Korkoneas is accused of killing Grigoropoulos
during a clash with around 30 youths in the
Exarchia district of Athens. His lawyer said Korko-
neas claims self defence saying the group threw
firebombs and other objects while shouting that
they “were going to kill them.”
The crisis has crossed borders, with Turkish
left-wing protestors daubing red paint over the
Greek consulate in Istanbul, and Greek embassies
in Moscow and Rome also targets for firebomb-
ers.
In Spain, 11 demonstrators were arrested and
several police officers injured during clashes in
Madrid and Barcelona, while 32 people were
arrested in Copenhagen when their protest in
support of Greek rioters turned violent, police
said. – AFP
theSun | FRIDAY DECEMBER 12 2008
German heiress’ former lover
charged with blackmail
MUNICH, (Germany): The former lover of Germa-
ny’s richest woman was charged with attempted
blackmail yesterday in connection with videos
made of their steamy hotel trysts, the Munich
prosecutor’s office said.
Helg Sgarbi, a 43-year-old Swiss, was also
charged with fraud and attempted fraud in con-
nection with other cases involving rich women,
the office said.
He was arrested in January in Austria after BMW
heiress Susanne Klatten accused him of trying to
extort 290 million euros (RM1.4 billion) in exchange
for the videos, according to press reports.
Klatten, a 46-year-old married mother-of-three,
is reputed to have a personal fortune of 7.8 billion
euros (RM36 billion) through stakes in automaker
BMW and chemicals giant Altana.
She is said to have fallen for the smooth-talking
Swiss in 2007 after meeting him in a hotel bar.
Press reports said other wealthy German women
also fell victim to Sgarbi’s scams in recent years.
– AFP
Ex-Indonesia foreign minister
Ali Alatas dies in Singapore
SINGAPORE: Former Indonesian foreign min-
ister Ali Alatas, who once served as United
Nations special envoy to Myanmar, died in
Singapore yesterday, Indonesian officials said.
He was 76.
Ali was Indonesian foreign minister from
1988 until 1999, and will be widely remem-
bered for his role in defending the Indonesian
invasion and occupation of East Timor until
Jakarta withdrew amid widespread violence
in 1999.
“The cause of death was heart attack,” said
senior Indonesian diplomat Kemal Haripur-
wanto. Ali died in Singapore’s Mount Elizabeth
Hospital. Alatas, the chairman of Indonesian
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Presi-
dential Advisory Council, had been undergoing
treatment in Singapore for more than a year,
Kemal said. – Reuters