A chef has decapitated his 25-year-old girlfriend with a cleaver and paraded around their village on a Greek holiday island carrying the severed head.

Thanassis Arvanitis, 31, is in a critical condition in hospital after being shot by police as he tried to get away in a patrol car on the island of Santorini.

Three bystanders were injured during his attempted getaway — a woman tourist struck by a ricocheting police bullet, and two doctors who were riding an oncoming motorbike that collided with the fleeing patrol car driven by the suspect.

The South Aegean Police Department said that the incident began when Mr Arvanitis had an argument with his girlfriend.

“The (suspect) slaughtered their dog and threw it out of their home and on to the street and proceeded to kill the woman . . . totally severing her head,” officers said in a statement.

“The attacker walked around the village carrying the head of the victim in one hand and the cleaver in the other.”

Mr Arvanitis agreed to surrender to police officers, then attacked one of them with the cleaver and escaped in a patrol car, the statement said. He was shot three times by police while trying to escape.

Three female bystanders were injured in the clash in Bourboulos, near the island’s main town of Fira. A 21-year-old Greek female tourist was hit by a ricocheting police bullet, and moments later the suspect crashed into an oncoming motorbike, injuring two female doctors, both aged 26.

Mr Arvanitis and the three women were being treated in a state hospital in Athens. The two doctors were making a good recovery after suffering leg injuries, said Dimitris Avramopoulos, the Health Minister. The tourist was in stable condition. The injured policeman received treatment for facial wounds at a clinic on Santorini.

“It’s hard to believe that people like this circulate among us,” said Angelos Roussos, the Mayor of Santorini.

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