He fell soft on a cloud pillow. A special court in Athens ruled that former Finance Minister Giorgos Papacontantinou had doctored the Lagarde List of suspected tax evaders but to a degree of misdemeanor. Papaconstantinou left the court with one-year suspended prison sentence. The original charge was on felony.
With a majority 8:5 the court accepted that Papaconstantinou removed the names of his relatives from the Lagarde list in order to protect his personal image and that he did not cause harm to the public interest.
Giorgos Papaconstantinou, 53, “served” the public 2009-2011 and he was the FinMin who signed for the first bailout with the IMF in 2010.
The court found him “innocent” of the crime of attempted infidelity, while he was Finance Minister.
He had faced a possible sentence of 10 years to life imprisonment over the felony charges but for this charge he should have to caused harm to state to an amount above 150,000 euro.
The ex finance minister of Papandreou government was being accused of removing the names of three of his relatives from the so-called Lagarde-List containing the name of over 2,000 Greeks with accounts at HSBC bank in Geneva.
Papaconstantinou’s case was heard by a special court set up to handle trials against politicians. Of the 13 judges, eight called for a guilty verdict on the document- tampering charge, with three of them calling for a felony count and the other five a misdemeanor.
Politicians in front of a special court is a rare phenomenon in Greek politics.
More on Papaconstantinou and the Lagarde List here
PS public image? what is this?
so, it seems that nothing will change…
until people realize that change begins with themselves and the society – the situation will continue to deteriorate.
no amount of hand-outs from the europeans will change this fact!
very disappointing about papakonstantinou – but not unexpected.
+1
He had faced a possible sentence of 10 years to life imprisonment over the felony charges but for this charge he should have to caused harm to state to an amount above 150,000 euro.
so his relatives would not own the Greek state over 150,000 euro?
this is a sad, sad joke.
it is still the same, they do not bite eachother.
it will go on and on.
there will be no Change, also with Tsipras and co
For a moment there was hope that this case would establish the groundwork for the cleaning up the scandalous reputation of the greek political and legal system .
It is frustrating from an observer’s viewpoint and i can only imagine the frustration within greece …. but i suspect the average Greek isnt protesting…they would see it as “business as usual” for the political elite.
There’s a need for real catharsis but I dont feel the winds of change are near.
Though I generally find your interpretative reporting fairly acceptable, for the sake of accuracy he was found guilty of negligence, not “doctoring” (even a little).