Athens, May 14: A bomb exploded outside Athens’ main prison on Thursday, slightly injuring two people and damaging dozens of shops and homes up to four blocks away, police said.
A police official said the bomb was placed inside a garbage container close to the wall of Korydallos prison, where the convicted members of the deadly November 17 urban guerrilla group are serving sentences.
A man and a woman were slightly injured by broken glass. The blast was heard kilometres away, said a Reuters witness.
“It was a very powerful bomb, probably the biggest we have had in years, but we had evacuated the area,” said the police official.
An unidentified caller had warned a Greek TV station and a newspaper that a bomb would blow up outside the prison in minutes. Police rushed to evacuate the area and the device went off at about 1915 GMT.
“We have counted 55 shops and homes damaged so far in a radius of several blocks,” the police official said.
Most buildings had their windows blown out.
Police said the attack could be an act of sympathy with six suspected members of the country’s most militant guerrilla group, Revolutionary Struggle. Several suspected members of the leftist group were captured and charged last month.
Bomb attacks by militant groups are frequent in Greece and usually target police, public buildings or businesses.
In March, a 15-year-old immigrant boy was killed and his mother and sister wounded after a bomb exploded outside a building in central Athens, in the first deadly attack in years.
Urban violence has increased after the police shooting of a teenager in December 2008, which prompted weeks of riots.
Social unrest is also picking up after Greece took belt-tightening measures, include wage cuts and tax hikes in recent months, aimed at pulling Greece out of a debt crisis.
Tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest austerity measures last week and more protests are planned by labour unions. During the march, three people, one of them a pregnant woman, were killed when hooded youths threw petrol bombs at a bank in central Athens.
Opinion polls show the public is angry for bearing the brunt of belt tightening and demands social justice. The socialist government has vowed to bring transparency to the political system and meritocracy in state institutions.
—-Agencies