Court orders extradition
A Chechen man wanted in Russia for the alleged murder of five policemen should be extradited from Greece, a court in the northern Aegean ruled yesterday. Amaev Khavazi, 34, was arrested on September 5 while trying to enter Greece illegally. Authorities only realized his identity after taking his fingerprints. There was an international arrest warrant in his name. He is accused in Russia of being part of an armed group led by autonomist Tarkhan Gaziev and of throwing a hand grenade at two police cars, killing five officers. Khavazi is to appeal his extradition at the Supreme Court.
Biden and patriarch.
US Vice President Joe Biden is to meet Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomaios on Saturday, November 22. Biden will hold talks with the spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians in Istanbul after meeting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu a day earlier.
Soccer shutdown.
The Hellenic Football Federation decided yesterday to ask the Central Committee for Refereeing not to appoint any match officials for next weekend’s matches in the top three soccer divisions. This was in response to the attack that the committee’s alternate president Christoforos Zografos suffered late on Thursday by two men at Kolonos west of Athens city center, resulting in the former referee being rushed to hospital with head injuries
Immigrant center.
Public Order Minister Vassilis Kikilias yesterday denied that migrant reception centers in Greece are a “disgrace.” Kikilias made his comments while visiting a former army camp in Corinth, west of Athens, that has been turned into a center for holding irregular migrants. He said that so far some 450 migrants who had been held at the center have been repatriated. Kikilias also suggested that authorities would relocate the unit “whenever we can.” Greece has been repeatedly condemned by the European Commission for conditions at its reception centers.
Baby death.
An investigation has been launched after a 4-month-old baby died on board a tourist coach in northern Greece early yesterday. The coach was traveling from Romania to Thessaloniki when the child’s parents, a Romanian couple, asked the driver to call an ambulance after their child started to run a high temperature. The ambulance met the bus on the Serres to Thessaloniki national road but the crew discovered that the child had died.