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Protesters arrested at Greek embassy in London
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-12-09 09:30

LONDON -- Police arrested five protesters at a rally outside the Greek embassy in London Monday, held to voice anger at the killing of a teenager in Athens, a police spokesman said.

Protesters confront police outside the Greek Embassy in west London December 8, 2008. Demonstrators gathered at the embassy to protests against the fatal shooting of a Greek teenager in Athens by police over the weekend. [Agencies]

Scuffles erupted after about 40 young demonstrators carrying anarchist banners tore down and set fire to the Greek flag outside the embassy, in the upmarket Holland Park area of west London.

The protest came on the third day of street battles across Greece following the police killing of a 15-year-old boy, Alexis Grigoropoulos.

"Cops are pigs and murderers," they shouted in Greek, according to one of the London protesters.

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Scuffles broke out between the black-clad demonstrators and police when officers tried to erect security barriers to keep back a second group of protesters outside the building, an AFP journalist said.

Police said a group occupying the terrace of the embassy building left on their own initiative, but later, about 20 masked protesters gathered down the road had to be removed, amid shoving and jostling.

"It involved up to about 40 protesters and there have been five arrested for a variety of public order offences and they remain in custody," a spokesman for London's Metropolitan police said. He said no one was thought to be injured.

The demonstrators issued a statement containing three demands, including a call that all those, from the police to the government, who "armed the hand of the murderer... pay for their crimes."

Their request to meet the ambassador was refused, a spokesman for the embassy said.

In Greece itself Monday, youths attacked cars and store-fronts in Salonika, the country's second largest city, and clashes broke out in the central city of Trikala as students occupied universities in Athens and other major centres.

The nationwide riots have left dozens wounded, caused widespread destruction and put new pressure on right-wing prime minister Costas Caramanlis.

In Berlin Monday some 15 young demonstrators occupied the Greek consulate, but there was no report of violence or arrests.