Athens

Photo: Photo: Simela Pantzartzi/European Pressphoto Agency

ATHENS (Reuters) - Thousands of youths rampaged through Athens and the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki on Sunday, burning dozens of shops and vehicles in a second day of rioting after police shot dead a 15-year-old boy. Greece's worst protests in years erupted in the capital late on Saturday after the shooting of the teenager, and quickly spread to Thessaloniki and the tourist islands of Crete and Corfu.

An Athens prosecutor charged two officers from an elite police corps with the shooting death of the 15-year-old, Andreas Grigoropoulos.

A 37-year-old officer who allegedly fired the shots was charged with manslaughter, while the other officer in the car was charged with abetting him, a statement from the prosecutor’s office said. Agence France-Presse identified Epaminondas Korkoneas as the older officer and Vassilis Saraliotis as his partner.

According to the police, the two police officers had been patrolling Exarchia when their car was stopped by some 30 young men, many of them hurling stones, at about 9 p.m. Both officers left their car to confront the mob, “firing three shots that resulted in the death of the minor,” according to the statement, even though witness accounts differ.

Private Greek media and a website popular among leftist youths, www.indymedia.org, said the teenager had been shot in the chest and died while being transferred to a local hospital.