Inspector insists municipal finances were in ‘chaos’ in former mayor’s appeal
Lawyers representing former Thessaloniki Mayor Vassilis Papageorgopoulos and other ex-municipal officials who are appealing their sentences for embezzlement failed on Tuesday in their bid to have financial inspector Anastasia Tsempera barred from giving evidence at their hearing.
Tsempera told judges that the municipality’s finances were in “complete chaos” and none of the laws regarding how spending should have been recorded were being observed. “All the laws were being ignored,” she told the court in Thessaloniki.
Papageorgopoulos was given a life sentence last year for siphoning some 18 million euros in municipal funds.
The former general secretary of the municipality, Michalis Lemousias, and the city treasurer, Panayiotis Saxonis, received the same sentences. They are also appealing their convictions.
