A 44-year old man was shot dead at around 4 a.m. this morning, when gunmen driving a 4X4 jeep, started firing shots at the man using a kalashnikov or MP5 gun. The victim was at a bar located at the corner of Chios and Creta street in the area of Plateia Vathi near Omonia square, downtown Athens, when eight shots were fired also causing injury to a 21-year old woman. According to reports, the 44-year old man was a father of two and was an employee at the Athens International Airport. He was visiting a friend who owns a bar, near the place he was shot dead. The man decided to go to a near-by bar after his friend closed up at around 2 a.m. There were approximately 30 patrons in the bar during the time the man was shot dead. Police are currently investigating what is considered to be ‘mafia-style’ shooting. It is believed that it is the “clearing up of personal business affairs,” but no official announcement has been made. During the last few years of the financial crisis, a significant increase in assassinations, murders and robberies have been noted in Greece. Armed robberies in Athens alone have doubled between 2007 and 2009, however, Athens is still among the safest capitals in Europe. Thefts and break-ins jumped from 26,872 recorded cases in 2007, to 47,607 in 2009. The number of murders in Athens nearly doubled between 2007 and 2009. Thefts and robberies in Greece increased by an average of 10 percent in 2011, the country’s fifth year of recession. The highest percentage of recorded offenses involved small amounts of money or property which police referred to as crimes of “emergency or survival” while violent, organized robberies decreased, according to statistics on the Police website yesterday. Robberies increased to 6,636 in 2011 with 5,134 taking place in the Attica region around Athens. Robbery increases were recorded for homes, shops and gas stations, while bank robberies dropped by more than half to 115 from 318 and post office robberies declined to 71 from 95, with supermarket hold-ups falling to 344 from 359, police said.
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