The Greek gaming tragedy is fast sliding into farce.

Last week a Greek judge threw out a case against two cybercafe owners from Thessaloniki, ruling that a law banning computer games was unconstitutional.

Had they been found guilty, the two proprietors and an employee could have faced a three month jail sentence and fines of about E5,000 each, along with the loss of their business licences.

The game-banning law was introduced to crack down on Internet gambling. Trouble is, this sledgehammer-to-crack-a-nut legislation also made it illegal to play computer games in public.

So the judge's decision to throw out the case appeared to be a return to good old-fashioned common sense. Not so. Yesterday, an appeals court overturned the decision and ordered a retrial.

According to Ananova no trial has been set yet. The farce continues. ®

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