Police shooting sparks riots in Greece

By Anthee Carassava
Sunday, December 7, 2008

Mobs of militant youth angered by the fatal shooting of a teenager took to a weekend of rampage, battling police in central Athens and destroying scores of shops, cars and businesses across the country.

The riots, triggered late Saturday when a small group of youths attacked a police car in central Athens, sparked a spree of violence that ripped through the country, leaving many cities shattered like war zones.

"We've never seen anything like this," said a senior police official who requested anonymity because of his involvement in the investigation. "The tension is so thick you can almost cut it with a knife."

The circumstances surrounding the fatal shooting remained unclear.

Still, a police statement issued in the early hours of Sunday said the shooting took place while two officers were targeted by some 30 youths — many of them hurling stones — while patrolling the central district of Exarchia, an unruly haven of leftist extremists.

Both officers left their car to confront the rioters, "firing three shots that resulted in the death of the minor," according to the statement.

Private Greek media and a website popular among leftist youths, www.indymedia.org, said the teenager had been shot in the chest and died while being transferred to a local hospital.

Both officers — members of Greece's elite police corps — have been suspended and senior officials vowed "exemplary punishment" for anyone found responsible.

"It is inconceivable for there not to be punishment when a person, let alone a minor, loses their life," said Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos. "The loss of life," he told an urgent news conference on Sunday, "is something that is inconceivable in a democracy."

The deadly shooting sparked widespread riots, with hundreds of militant youth storming the streets of Athens within hours of the incident, hurling fire bombs, rocks and slabs of concrete at police who retaliated with tear gas.

Private television networks broke into scheduled programming, broadcasting violent shows of street fights, the worse in recent years.

Black-clad youth were seen smashing storefronts, targeting bank branches, torching dozens of refuse containers and cars lined along the meandering streets of Athens' high-street commercial district.

Similar protests rattled the country's second largest metropolis, Thessaloniki and a string of other Greek cities, including Chania on the island of Crete.

No casualties were reported, but the overnight riots left Athens and other major cities strewn with shattered glass, burnt appliances and a stench of acrid smoke of tear gas.

At least six people were arrested for looting goods from the debris of destroyed department stores and boutiques.

Authorities in Athens braced for heated protests at a scheduled demonstration later Sunday.

Pavlopoulos, who tendered a resignation early Sunday that was not accepted by the Greek Prime Minister, called for restraint during those rallies.

"People have the right to protest and will do so, but while the pain and grief caused by the minor's death is understandable, no outrage... can lead to the violence and destruction of private property that was witnessed [Sunday]."