Hellenic Police

A Thessaloniki court handed an eight-year prison sentence to a 27-year-old rapper for the sexual abuse of a 16-year-old girl he had met on social media.

He was found guilty on the charge of raping a minor but was acquitted from an illegal imprisonment charge. The man was returned to prison following the ruling.

Following the announcement on Wednesday by Citizen Protection Minister Notis Mitarakis that he had signed a decision creating a new mounted police force, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has reportedly blocked the decision.

"[The proposal] to create a Hellenic Police mounted unit was not accepted by the prime minister", said governmental sources available to Kathimerini.

The 32-year-old Bangladeshi accused of raping and murdering 27-year-old Anastazja Rubinska on the island of Kos last week has been detained pending trial.

Appearing before an investigative magistrate on Wednesday for three hours, he reportedly denied the charges.

The financing for the renewal of the term of office of 800 fixed-term border guards in the eastern Aegean has been decided by the managing authority of the Migration Ministry.

The move aims to strengthen the operational capacity of the Hellenic Police for the protection and surveillance of the country's external borders.

The 21 people, including two minors, arrested for rioting during Thursday's gathering in the center of Athens to protest Wednesday's shipwreck tragedy were referred to an investigating judge on Friday. 

The head of the EU border agency Frontex has said the Greek authorities "did their upmost to save lives" in Wednesday's sinking of a ship crammed with migrants that went down off the coast of Pylos, in the Peloponnese.

Speaking from the nearby city of Kalamata, Frontex Executive Director Hans Leijtens said the sinking was "a horrible incident, any way you look at it."

The genetic material found in a car containing heavy weaponry in the Neos Kosmos district of Athens last week has been identified by the Hellenic Police (ELAS) as belonging to the two victims of a mafia attack in Korydallos on June 7.

Vassilis Roubetis, 38, and his brother-in-law Dionysis Mouzakitis, 31, were fatally shot in an ambush linked to ongoing gang rivalries.

Vassilis Roubetis who was assassinated in a late-night ambush on Wednesday in the Korydallos district of Athens, had expressed concerns about being targeted for a contract killing, according to two separate sources within the Hellenic Police (ELAS), as reported by Kathimerini.

Local residents at a district east of Thessaloniki were warned about a rogue bear that was spotted roaming the region on Wednesday.

According to the Pilea-Chortiatis municipality's announcement, eye-witnesses saw the animal right below the radar on the path to Kissos, in the Makedonomachon area, near the park of Agia Paraskevi.

A 52-year-old man has been apprehended in a village near Kavala in northern Greece, accused of sexually assaulting his intellectually disabled daughter over a period of 18 years. Law enforcement officials from the Hellenic Police (ELAS) carried out the arrest.