Armed escorts only for heads of state during Olympics: Minister

Only current and former heads of state visiting Greece during the Athens Olympics in August will be allowed to bring their own armed escorts, Greek Public Order Minister George Voulgarakis reiterated Thursday.

Briefing Parliament's Institutions and Transparency Committee, the minister clarified that athletes and their support teams would be accompanied by their own security escorts but that they would not be armed.

"Sports delegations will have their escorts, who will not be armed however," he said.

On recent reports that US soldiers will be present in Greece during the Games, he categorically denied the presence of foreign troops of any nationality during the Games.

"There will not be any army, whether American, French or Portuguese, nor snipers on the rooftops or other facilities," he said.

Voulgarakis said that the government would allow members of the Authority for the Protection of Personal Data and the Privacy of Communications Authority to be present at the operations centers for the electronic surveillance system set up for the Olympics.

In addition, it would initiate dialogue on the best use of the system after the Olympics in accordance with the dictates of the Constitution.

The minister sought to reassure those concerned about the possible infringement of civil liberties through use of the system after the Games, saying that the government shared views in favor of civil liberties and was not prepared to use the system against the citizens.

He said the most probable post-Olympic use for the system will be for traffic control on national highways and high-accident areas in cities or for the policing of sports grounds such as football stadiums, where hooliganism was a factor.

He stressed that any such use would absolutely respect rights established under constitution.