Police on Tuesday said they have identified the driver of a white car, who along with two other men, viciously attacked a sanitation worker in central Athens last Saturday evening after the latter reportedly warned them not to pass a stopped garbage truck collecting refuse.
The attack was videotaped by passersby and later aired on television newscasts, generating public opinion outrage and calls by the mayor’s office and union officials for the perpetrators to be found, as well as for better protection for sanitation crews.
The video footage shows three men exiting a white vehicle and pouncing on the municipal worker.
The primetime newscast of Mega Channel on Tuesday aired a pixelized photograph of the alleged perpetrator and detailed a long “rap sheet” associated with the suspect.
According to an exclusive report by Mega, the suspect is an Albanian national who has been previously charged with criminal offenses on 17 different occasions, beginning in 2000 when he was a pre-teen.
Charges have included theft, illegal narcotics possession, robbery, auto theft, domestic violence, assault, weapons possession and discharging a firearm.
A manhunt is underway to locate the suspect, with authorities also examining the possibility of his flight to Albania.
