Greece VIP police go back on beat despite overnight bombs
ATHENS, Sept 30 (AFP)
Greek authorities are to cut by more than half the number of policemen assigned to protect VIPs, a police source here said Tuesday, even as five homemade bombs detonated around Athens overnight.
Some 2,500 of the 4,000 policemen assigned to VIP protection will be gradually reintegrated into units maintaining law and order at the end of their current orders, the source said.
The decision was taken by new Public Order Minister Giorgos Floridis on the grounds of a decreased threat of attack and also because of the abuse of the system by VIPs, who include government ministers, politicians, magistrates, journalists, bankers and other personalities.
Overnight Tuesday, however, five mini-bombs were detonated, one destroying three cars and a motorbike at the home of a MP from the New Democracy (ND) conservative opposition party in the chic Kolonaki district, a police source said.
Two buildings belonging to the Socialist Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) under Prime Minister Costas Simitis were also targeted, as was an ND building in Athens' outer surburbs.
The fifth targeted was the Kolonaki home of university teacher Georges Veltsos, a personal friend of Simitis, where the entrance was damaged.
The explosive devices went off within 30 minutes after midnight. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Some hours before, a similar device was thrown at the house of a star television journalist in the Plaka tourist area, damaging the door and facade of the building.
Hundreds of small attacks of this type, targeting buildings, cars and banks, have been carried out over recent years in Athens and are blamed by the police on a local anarchist movement.
Under pressure to improve security ahead of the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004, Greek authorities have over the last year clamped down on November 17, a group accused of having assassinated Greek, Turkish, British and American personalities, as well as the People's Revolutionary Struggle (ELA) extremist organisation.