Man gunned down outside bar in Athens’s Kypseli district

Police investigating the cold-blooded murder of a 25-year-old man outside a bar in the busy downtown Athens district of Kypseli on Monday night believe he may have fallen victim to his own criminal connections.

The 25-year-old came under attack at around 11.30 p.m. while sitting outside the bar on Fokionos Negri Street and was shot five or six times by a man on the back of a motorcycle that then sped off, according to eye witnesses, and died shortly after at hospital.

Investigators have since discovered that the victim had a long record linking him to organized crime and are working on the assumption that his killing may be linked to another shooting on Sunday night in the western suburb of Peristeri.

In that incident, which also occurred at around 11.30 p.m., a 61-year-old man suspected of belonging to a major protection racket active in the Attica area was gunned down by an unknown assailant in the middle of the street. The assailant was on foot and the victim was riding a scooter.