Politicians named in hotel probe
A Rhodes prosecutor investigating allegations of building violations involving hotels on the resort island has faulted three Socialist former Cabinet members and one of the party’s MPs, sources told Kathimerini yesterday. The investigation, a report on which is expected to be forwarded to Parliament next month, named former Economy Minister Nikos Christodoulakis, former Deputy Economy Minister Apostolos Fotiadis and former Deputy Development Minister Dimitris Georgakopoulos as having stepped out of line by approving the sale of public land to a hotel company. The April 2003 decision was signed despite the fact that Rhodes prosecutors had already charged the Atlantica Hotel owners with illegally building two hotels on state-owned land by the sea at Kolymbia. Although the Council of State ordered the hotels’ closure, a regional authority has allowed them to continue operating. PASOK MP for the Dodecanese Ioannis Paraskevas has also been implicated in building violations involving another hotel at Plimmiri.
