Update of an old item

Back on November 26 I mentioned the case of Steve Chapman, a British national who was one of five hunger strikers just released from a Greek prison. They had been among those arrested in June in the wake of anti-globalization marches held to coincide with the European Union summit meeting, one of which turned into a riot.

At the time, there was increasing concern he'd been framed, as a videotape showed police swapping his shoulder bag with another once containing gasoline bombs as he sat dazed on the sidewalk.

Now a council of magistrates has freed him, having "accepted that police had planted incriminating evidence on him," according to the February 14 edition of the Greek newspaper Kathimerini. The Thessaloniki Magistrates' Council also dismissed charges against 12 more, reduced felony charges to misdemeanors for another six, and order additional investigations in the case of the remaining eight arrestees.

What remains now, it would seem, is one more investigation: of the police.