Crete: prosecutor wants 2 years imprisoment for widow, 90, for illegally receiving allowance

A prosecutor at a court in Chania, proposed a two-year prison sentence for a 90-year-old widow. The woman had illegally collected allowance by the social security fund IKA, after the death of her husband. For seven consecutive years, the widow received allowance payments totaling 67,000 euro, in addition to pension of her deceased husband.

The woman, who was absent from her trial, submitted a written apology claiming, she was not aware that receiving the allowance was illegal. However she did not convince the judges who sentenced her to 7 months imprisonment.

67,000 euro : 7 years : 12 months = 797 euro per month

Creating an example with a granny? it looks so… I cannot tell what kind of allowance was this making the granny rich with 797 euro every month. Only Greece’s biggest insurance fund IKA and the granny know, plus the committee that granted this allowance.

I cannot even tell how the case went into court. Probably the illegal payments were discovered in the context of Greece’s recent hunt-launching of  thousands of illegal pensions, allowances and benefits.

Ι could also accept that the woman did not know the allowance should have been cut after the death of her husband.

But a court exhausting its severity on a 90-year-old granny? When the justice in Greece needs years – sometimes even decades – to rule over the bold, the rich and the famous?

PS of course, grannies’ cases are much more simple to deal with than all the complicated finances of the big scale tax evaders and cheaters.  It certainly takes years to investigate off-shore ownerships and the labyrinth ways of transferring money to shadow companies and bank accounts.