Rioting continued in Athens for a fifth successive day today despite claims that the death of a teenage boy, which sparked a wave of violence, was caused by a bullet ricochet rather than a direct hit from a policeman.

Lawyers representing the officer charged with murdering Alexandros Grigiropoulos, 15, said a ballistics report proved that the boy was accidently struck by a stray warning shot.

The teenager’s death on Saturday night unleashed a convulsion of violence across the country that has not been matched since the 1970s.

The confrontations with police continued today as a general strike against the Government’s economic policies prompted yet more protestors to fill the streets of Athens.

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Grigiropoulos was buried yesterday in a funeral marred by clashes with riot police four days after he was shot in the chest by a policeman. Forensic reports, which have not been officially published, suggest that the bullet was deformed and could therefore have been deflected before killing the boy.

The coroner has reportedly insisted that the shape of the bullet does not conclusively rule out a direct hit.

After four days of rioting across the country that greeted news of the shooting, Greece’s main trade unions brushed aside a government appeal to cancel today’s strike and rally.

More than 10,000 people marched through the centre of the city to protest against the conservative government’s fiscal policies. The march descended into violence when riot police began firing tear gas at a small group of youths who threw Molotov cocktails and rocks at them near parliament in the centre of the Greek capital.

Flights to and from Athens International airport were cancelled, and public hospitals across Greece were operating with a skeleton staff. Schools and universities were closed.

Today’s confrontations were milder as the anarchist wave that had devastated parts of central Athens and the major cities for four days seemed to be ebbing.

Concern now centres on the hundreds of shop proprietors who saw their premises smashed and looted, and who have suffered an estimated €1 billion in damage and stolen goods.

Nikitas Kaklamanis, the mayor of Athens, appealed for what he called a special “relief loan” to help the shop owners back on their feet.

“I asked the prime minister to make available an interest-free loan with a 2-year grace period and payoff period of between 10 and 15 years,” Mr Kaklamanis said after meeting with Kostas Karamanlis, the embattled Prime Minister.

Many shops remained boarded up today, dashing hopes among retailers that Christmas sales might make up for a disastrous year exacerbated by the eurozone recession.

Mr Karamanlis yesterday heard calls from cabinet members for a stiffening of the police, whose powers were reduced by the socialist government in the 1980s.

His centre-right government, though badly shaken and hanging onto power by a mere majority of one in the 300-seat Parliament, was unlikely to fall, bolstered by what could be the start of a middle-class backlash against the rioters.

“They’re just bored louts, living off their parents’ money,” said one shopkeeper surveying the acres of broken glass around what had once been a clothes shop in central Athens, as the ominous sound of tear gas and petrol bombs echoed a few streets away.

On the other hand, the private television channels have been one-sided and anti-police in reporting the riots. “Unprovoked murder” is the term the Greek media uncritically use to describe last Saturday’s police shooting.

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