Mayor passes blame for fire
Zakynthos Mayor Dionysis Tsagaropoulos, who has been charged with setting fire to the municipality’s accounts department, has blamed the head of financial services for the blaze. Tsagaropoulos told a prosecutor yesterday the fire was the work of the head accountant, Vassilis Stergiotis, who is trying to cover his tracks after stealing money from the municipality. Stergiotis has admitted to torching the offices but claims he was acting under the instructions of the mayor. Press reports say that a 10-million-euro Piraeus Bank loan – which the mayor allegedly attempted to take out by forging municipality decisions – is at the center of the scandal. Other sources say problems arose when Tsagaropoulos called an audit of the financial services department after noticing money had gone missing.
