Shots fired at school in hunt for fugitive immigrants
Coastguard officers fired shots at an Athens school while pursuing four fugitive illegal immigrants, authorities announced today - one day after the incident occurred.
No one was hurt.
The immigrants were arrested in the school playground after escaping from a nearby court building, the merchant marine ministry said.
School officials said about 200 children were in the building at the time of the shooting and were all sitting their summer examinations.
’’The coast guard officers used blank bullets and all the shots were fired in the playground where there were no children,’’ said Nicholaos Voulgaris, the marine ministry’s security director.
’’The incident will be fully investigated. We will also investigate the reasons why the officers delayed reporting the incident.’’
The fugitives were part of a group of 87 immigrants from Iraq and Iran who were arrested on Wednesday when coastguard officers boarded a vessel off a deserted coast near Athens.
Three smuggling suspects, a Turkish man and two Greeks, were also arrested and on Friday were each sentenced by a court to 22 years and six months in prison and ordered to pay fines of 4.7 million drachmas (£8,000).
The two Greeks were released after appealing against their sentence.
