Law

The Council of Ministers approved a draft protocol on cooperation between the Government of the Republic of Bulgaria and the Government of the Republic of Northern Macedonia in the field of combating trafficking in human beings.

Anti-narcotics officers found more than 3,000 packages containing heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and hashish during a raid on an apartment used by members of a drug dealing gang operating in the neighborhoods around central Victoria Square and the Athens University of Economics and Business, police in the capital said Tuesday.

The Serbian Parliament has voted amendments to the Penal Code to abolish the 30- to 40-year prison sentence and introduce life imprisonment for the worst crimes, Tanjug reported.

The changes to the Balkan country's criminal law were approved with 159 votes in the 250-member assembly. 

In a blow to the aspirations of thousands of public sectors workers, a plenary session of the Council of State, the country's highest administrative court, has ruled that the law scrapping Christmas, Easter and holiday bonuses for civil servants is constitutional.

There are 15 of them, ranging from the crime of murdering representatives of the highest state authorities to genocide. Sentences of 30 to 40 years in prison will be abandoned, so Serbian judges will have to choose between 20 years and life imprisonment when sentencing people so convicted.

The Administrative Court will meet today on the air clean-up case in Sofia. It was filed by non-governmental organizations against Sofia Municipality.

The coordinating committee of Greece's bar associations on Friday lashed out at suggestions that the results of the elections for European Parliament and local government later this month may be tampered with, saying that a fair count is "guaranteed by the representatives of the judicial authority."

A prosecutor and an investigative magistrate ordered the detention of a man who reportedly confessed to killing a mini market owner in Chania, a local news website reported on Thursday.
The 60-year-old suspect was charged with murder and illegal possession and use of firearms after testifying before the judicial authorities.

The United States is preparing for its use, said the Director of the Non-Proliferation and Arms Control of the Russian MFA, quoted by NOVA TV. 

Having a nuclear weapon in Europe, the United States is preparing to use it, RIA Novosti told the director of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Vladimir Ermakov, of the Russian MFA's Directorate for Non-proliferation and Control.

A 60-year-old man Hania, Crete, accused of the fatal shooting of a mini-market owner on Sunday was on Monday granted an extension by an investigating magistrate to prepare his defense.

The suspect, who faces charges of murder and of illegal possession and use of a weapon, is to reappear before the magistrate on Thursday.