Greek crime journalist shot dead outside his home

ATHENS: A veteran Greek crime journalist was shot dead outside his home in Athens on Friday, a police source said, in a rare crime targeting a member of the media.

Giorgos Karaivaz, who worked for private TV station Star and also ran the news blog bloko.gr, was shot several times in the southern Athens district of Alimos, the police source told AFP. "The murder has shocked us all," government spokeswoman Aristotelia Peloni said in a statement. "The authorities are already investigating the case," she added. Reports said the journalist had been shot by two men on a motorbike.

"The founder and owner of bloko.gr is no longer with us," Karaivaz’s blog said. "Somebody chose to silence him, to stop him with bullets from writing his stories," it said. According to reports, Karaivaz, who was one of Greece’s longest-tenured and best known crime reporters, was married and had a child.

"I can’t even process this information, I’ve known this man for 32 years," fellow Star TV journalist Vaios Syrros said during the station’s afternoon news show. While Greek media offices are frequently targeted in firebomb and vandalism attacks, journalist killings are rarer in Greece.