The Greek-Russian businessman owner of Greek football club PAOK Thessaloniki – a former MP for Vladimir Putin’s party – has received a
suspended 25-month prison sentence for storming on to a pitch with a
holstered gun on his belt to confront a referee.
Ivan Savvidis, 62, said he was angered when the official disallowed his team’s injury-time goal in a top-of-the-table clash with AEK Athens. PAOK were also docked three points for the incident, which occurred in 2018 but has been the subject of long legal delays until now.
The club made headlines again after last week’s Europa Conference League match against Denmark’s Midtjylland, when fans unfurled a banner reading “Brothers hang in there”, thought to be a message of support for 12 supporters alleged to be involved in the murder of 19-year-old Aris Thessaloniki fan Alkis Kambanos earlier in February.
Police on the Danish island of Lolland were baffled when a driver sent them footage of a kangaroo he’d spotted hopping through fields next to a road near the village of Øster Ulslev.
The most likely solution seemed to be an escapee from the nearby Knuthenborg Safaripark, but staff said a count of its kangaroos confirmed that none of its animals was missing.
Authorities have appealed for anyone who might have had the marsupial as a pet to come forward.
A man from Albal, Spain, who complained to police that a prostitute had not given him value for money has been fined £670 for paying for sexual services.
He was unaware that the town, near Valencia, had become the first in Spain to outlaw using the services of sex workers in a public place, following the murder of 19-year-old Romanian Florina Gogos in January 2021.
An unlucky thief who stole an electric scooter in broad daylight in Winterthur, near Zurich, was immediately apprehended by two policemen.
They pointed out that the scooter belonged to one of them and had been
parked at their police station at the time. A 40-year-old, who said he had not noticed where he was, has been charged with theft and trespassing.
Police stopped an elderly woman driving through the Bavarian market town of Oberstdorf to tell her she was dragging a dead dog on a rope behind her vehicle.
Police said the sickened 69-year-old had been the victim of pranksters, and that tests had shown the animal was already dead before being attached to her car.
Bulgarian MEP Angel Dzhambazki is facing sanctions after appearing to make a Nazi salute in the European parliament chamber.
The Bulgarian National Movement politician raised his right arm after making an angry speech denouncing as an “abomination” a ruling that the EU can withhold money to member states like Hungary and Bulgaria that
are found to have violated rules on judicial independence and press freedom.
Dzhambazki said the incident was a “small misunderstanding” and that he had been “humbly waving to the chair”. He said his critics were guilty of “libel and defamation”.
