Prosecutor in favor of shorter term for ex-mayor
Prosecutor Dimitris Naintos recommended to a Thessaloniki appeals court on Wednesday that the life sentence handed down to the northern port city’s former mayor, Vassilis Papageorgopoulos, should be reduced.
The judicial official suggested that the ex-mayor should not be deemed directly complicit in the theft of 17.9 million euros from the municipality’s coffers.
According to the prosecutor, Papageorgopoulos was complicit through negligence. This would reduce his jail sentence to between 10 and 20 years.
Naintos also recommended that the municipality’s former general secretary, Michalis Lemousias, also be found guilty of a lesser crime, whereas he proposed that the conviction of ex-municipal treasurer Panayiotis Saxonis should not change.
All three men received life sentences last year.
Two other municipal officials were given sentences of 10 and 15 years.
