Georgiou’s Strasbourg appeal
Greece risks condemnation by the European Court of Human Rights after an appeal by Andreas Georgiou, the former head of the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT), related to a two-year suspended sentence he received from a Greek court.
Georgiou headed ELSTAT between 2010 and 2015 and had been accused in Greece of falsifying budget data in order to justify the country’s first international bailout, an accusation for which has already been cleared twice.
However, he received a two-year suspended sentence over his handling of how ELSTAT’s board of directors had been briefed.
He was acquitted in the first instance but the decision was appealed and the case was tried in an appeals court which convicted him.
He then appealed, unsuccessfully, to the Supreme Court, requesting that it refer a question to the European Court to clarify what European law provides regarding the responsibility of statistical authority heads. Georgiou is now appealing to the Strasbourg court seeking the condemnation of Greece.
