ATHENS, Dec 12: Greek police fought street battles Friday with youths who hurled petrol bombs and stones amid new demonstrations over the police killing of a schoolboy.

After one of the calmest nights since the death of Alexis Grigoropoulos last Saturday sparked nationwide riots, police stormed about 100 youths on the sidelines of a demonstration, seizing a number of them and wrestling them to the ground.

The youths had thrown firebombs and stones at police who fired back tear gas before the protest rally started a march toward the Greek parliament.

Authorities remained on alert with scores of university campuses and schools across Athens and Greece’s second city of Thessaloniki still occupied.

Militant youths have staged attacks from behind university walls throughout the violent protests, taking advantage of a law that prevents police from entering educational establishments.

The only violence reported overnight saw rocks thrown at a sports club headed by Antenna television owner Minos Kyriakou, who is also the chairman of the Greek Olympic Committee, police said.

A protest march on parliament in Athens on Thursday evening ended in minor clashes between youths and police while another demonstration drawing over 1,000 protesters in Thessaloniki ended peacefully.

The nationwide unrest has left hundreds of banks, stores and public buildings destroyed, badly damaged by fire or looted. Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis has offered cash help to businesses.

But Karamanlis, whose parliamentary majority consists of just one deputy, already shaken by corruption scandals and opposition to unpopular reforms, now faces a new political crisis.

—AFP