Greece has charged seven people with arson over blazes that have
claimed more than 60 lives and threatened some of Europe's most
historic sites, media reported Tuesday.?
A spokesman for firefighters said seven people have been charged
with starting fires and anti-terrorist prosecutor Dimitris
Papagelopoulos said he was opening a preliminary investigation into
the cause.
Both announcements fueled mounting speculation that the fires
were started by criminal gangs.
The country is on a disaster footing as more than 30 fires
devastated forests in the south and west of the Peloponnese, the
peninsula to the south of Athens which has been hit the
hardest.
Firefighters are surrounding the site of Olympia, the birthplace
of the Olympic Games, after succeeding on Sunday in preventing the
flames from devastating one of Greece's most historic
treasures.
"The fact that so many fires have broken out in so many areas at
once is perhaps not a coincidence," Prime Minister Costas
Karamanlis said at the weekend.
Greece goes to the polls for a general election in just three
weeks' time that Karamanlis is favored to win.
(Xinhua News Agency via agencies?August 28, 2007)
