Publisher and former television news anchor Emilios Liatsos was arrested on Friday and held in a downtown Athens police precinct before being led to a prosecutor.

Liatsos, the publisher of the weekly periodical "Friday 13", was arrested following a lawsuit filed against him by Elena Tzouli, the wife of MP Panos Kammenos, who recently formed his own political party after quitting New Democracy.

Kammenos and his wife have alleged that the weekly violated a court injunction preventing the newspaper from publishing Tzouli's name.

The name of the plaintiff appeared in the newspaper issue published on Friday.

Liatsos was later released in the evening.

Liatsos' arrest generated a reaction by the New Democracy and Popular Orthodox Rally (LA.O.S) parties. amna

ND party spokesman Yiannis Mihelakis accused Kammenos of "openly criminalising freedom of the press, information and the free exchange of ideas ."

He further charged that Kammenos "is attempting to intimidate journalists", stressing that it was unprecedented and unheard of for a political party leader to demand for the arrest and jailing of a journalist for an article in the latter's newspaper. www.amna.gr

LA.O.S' press office charged that the "arrest of journalist Emilios Liatsos, for the publication of an interview, seriously harms freedom of speech ... the repulsive methods of the decade of the 1980s can only be seen as revenge.