Punishments

A man in the northern port city of Thessaloniki was handed a one-year suspended sentence on Monday for flouting a government-ordered closure of retail stores as part of its plan to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

The 44-year-old was arrested in a household goods store inside the city's open Kapani (Vlali) market on April 9, after authorities found a customer.

The Larnaca District Court imposed a 30-day prison sentence and a 700-euro fine on a 52-year-old who had attacked a member of police after the officer fined a relative of his, who he was accompanying outdoors, for violating restriction measures.

The court on Friday found the man guilty of non-compliance with measures in place to contain the spread of coronavirus.

Bulgaria's Parliament on March 23 voted to approve the President's veto on the State of Emergency Measures Act. The law was passed on March 13 and provided for regulating the measures and actions during the month-long state of emergency introduced in connection with the coronavirus epidemic, BNT reported.

A deadly riot broke out in a prison in Colombia's capital, leaving 23 inmates dead, authorities said on March 22, as tensions rise over the spread of the coronavirus in one of the most vulnerable locations: crowded, poorly kept penitentiaries.

Police in northern Greece on Wednesday were seeking a 51-year-old foreign inmate of the Nigrita Prison who failed to return to the penitentiary on Tuesday, when his furlough expired.

The inmate, who had received a six-day prison leave, is serving a sentence for forming a criminal gang and violating immigration law.

Turkey has deported an American foreign fighter and will soon deport another seven Germans, a spokesman for the interior ministry said on Nov. 11.

Not yet 30, his life in tatters, Dejan filed for compensation from the Ministry of Justice but received no response by the legal deadline. He took Serbia to court and in 2017 received a payout of just over 21,000 euros for unlawful detention.

The rights group said it documented five cases where the Supreme State Security Prosecution (SSSP) "bypassed court orders to release (the dissidents) from arbitrary detention by imprisoning them in new cases based on fabricated charges."

Four jailed members of the now-defunct Greek terrorist group November 17, including leader Alexandros Giotopoulos, will be able to apply as of Tuesday for a prison release under conditions, due to the provisions of the new penal code which took effect on July 1.

An Athens court on Wednesday handed down a 10-year suspended sentence to Andreas Martinis, the former chairman of Athens's Henry Dunant Hospital, and his wife after finding them guilty of money laundering.