Alexandros Grigoropoulos

The police are taking stringent measures for the 15th anniversary of the murder of teenager Alexandros Grigoropoulos on Wednesday. According to the Hellenic Police (ELAS), the plan includes thousands of officers deployed on the streets, with reinforcement from riot police units from the provinces. 

Extraordinary traffic regulations will be put in place on various roads in the center of Athens during the afternoon and evening hours on Wednesday, December 6, due to the rallies and marches announced to mark the 15th anniversary of the murder of teenager Alexandros Grigoropoulos by a police officer in Exarchia.

A group of anti-establishment youths held a protest rally against police violence in the downtown district of Exarchia on Monday evening, a day after the anniversary of the killing of a teenager by a police officer 12 years ago.

Officers detained an unspecified number of protesters on Athens' main Syntagma Square on Friday who threw flyers and unfurled a banner with slogans ahead of the anniversary of the fatal police shooting of an unarmed teenager in 2008.

A court's reduction of the life prison sentence of Greek Police special officer Epameinondas Korkoneas, who in 2008 murdered for no reason 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos in the Athens neighbourhood of Exarheia, has raised a number of questions and has provoked public opinion.

The life sentence handed down to former policeman Epameinondas Korkoneas for the killing of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos was overturned by a Greek court today.

Korkoneas shot dead Grigoropoulos on 6 December, 2008.

The murder sparked many days of rioting in Athens and around the country.

The jailed anarchist and robber Nikos Romanos is expected to be freed in due course after a five-member criminal appeals court on Monday reduced his initial sentence, following a recent Supreme Court decision recognizing his good behavior behind bars.

The ongoing appeal trial on the murder of schoolboy Alexandros Grigoropoulos 11 years ago continued in the city of Lamia on Thursday with the testimony of Epaminondas Korkoneas, the former officer convicted to life imprisonment for the killing in the first trial in 2010.

Greek riot police used a water cannon to disperse protesters in central Athens, during an anniversary rally on Thursday marking the 2008 police shooting of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos. Police reportedly detained 30 people in Athens, including some minors, and one in Thessaloniki during clashes with hooded youths after the end of the protest marches in both cities.

Protesters wear gas masks during an anniversary rally marking the 2008 police shooting of 15-year-old student, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, in Athens, Thursday. New protest marches were underway Thursday evening hours after violent initial demonstrations where masked youths attacked police with firebombs and stones. [Costas Baltas/Reuters]