The three-member criminal court of appeals imposed a prison sentence of six to twenty years in the case of the illegal remuneration of former Defense Minister Akis Tsochatzopoulos. According to the court decision, which differed from the prosecutor's proposal only for the daughter of former minister Areti Tsochatzopoulou, imposing a longer sentence on her.
The penalties are as follows:
Akis Tsochatzopoulos - Imprisonment for 20 years
Asterios Economidis - Imprisonment for 12 years
Efrosini Lambropoulou - Imprisonment for 13 years
Nikos Zigras - Imprisonment for 6 years. He is the only defendant to whom the court recognized mitigation, namely that of sincere remorse
George Sachpatzidis - Imprisonment for 13 years
Areti Tsochatzopoulou - Imprisonment for 12 years. With a prosecutor's proposal for 10 years in prison
Viki Stamati - Imprisonment for 12 years
Giannis Sbokos - Imprisonment for 16 years
Talita - Maria Tsekoura - Imprisonment for 10 years
George Constantatos - Imprisonment for 10 years
Nikos Georgoulakis - Imprisonment for 10 years
Horatios Melas - Imprisonment for 10 years
Konstantinos Antoniadis - Imprisonment for 10 years
Finally, Panagiotis Stamatis, Gudrun Tsochatzopoulou, Fotis Arvanitis and Nikos Karatzas were sentenced to 6 years in prison each.
The last four, according to the court decision, had been found guilty without the aggravating circumstance of committing the offense of money laundering.
The court will decide whether and which of the accused will be suspended from serving their sentences, in order to be released.
It is worth noting that according to the judges the charge of money laundering was fully proven.
The court based on the evidence ruled that the crime of passive bribery was committed by the former Minister, who - according to the judges - asked for a pledge of money from the Spring of 1997 until the end of his term of 23-10-2001 associated with the supply of German submarines and TORM-1.
According to the indictment prepared for the case, the defendants "committed by acting jointly or alone the offense of money laundering which consists of the offense of continuing passive bribery of the former minister directed against the Greek state" .
The multi-page referral panel states that all the accused committed the acts attributed to them as members of an organization created in 1998 “… .. acting professionally because the repeated execution of the act and the infrastructure it had formed reveals its purpose for income and his steadfast inclination to commit the crime of money laundering ”.
According to the indictment that the appellants judge shortly before the pronouncement of their decision through the organization "a significant amount of illegal income was placed and concealed through a well-established and complex network of domestic and foreign companies and the use of numerous bank accounts to disappear the traces of the money through labyrinthine routes having formed an organized readiness to carry out money laundering".
Akis: The sentence is devastating for me and my family
A court that was "derailed by law and justice" characterizes the three-member Criminal Court of Appeals, the former minister Akis Tsochatzopoulos, sentenced to 20 years in prison, in a statement.
The former minister refers to the "extermination sentence" of himself and his wife and daughter, who were sentenced without parole on appeal to 12 years in prison and claims that the court that tried the case of his illegal fees, from weapons programs "proved insufficient and unable to resist "interventions" from above ".
The entire announcement of the former minister is as follows:
"Today the judicial officials committed a crime against the law and Justice itself. This Court proved to be insufficient and weak to resist the "above" interventions of guilt, conviction, imprisonment against me, of the well-known civil-judicial power centers, which since 2010 imposed on the media the communicative cannibalism and slander against me and my family. The same centers that in 2011, with the unprecedented collaboration between PASOK and ND, forced the Parliament to cover up the Y/B scandal at the Skaramangas Shipyards and prosecute me.
Today the Court was derailed by law and justice.
Disregarding both his obligation to investigate the truth in depth, but also violating the rules of a fair trial, he proceeded, unsubstantiated and without evidence of non-existent bribery, to a death sentence against me and my family.
I do not acknowledge this decision and will appeal immediately. I continue the struggle to prove my truth and innocence ".
Source: Sigmalive.com