BBC News, 7
October 2013
Akis Tsochatzopoulos, seen here arriving for a separate trial in April, has become a symbol of official corruption in Greece |
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Greek
former defence minister Akis Tsochatzopoulos has been found guilty of money
laundering, in one of the highest-profile corruption case since Greece's
financial crisis began.
Tsochatzopoulos,
who was already in jail over a separate case, will be sentenced on Tuesday.
Akis
Tsochatzopoulos served as a minister in several Greek Socialist governments
over the past 30 years.
There has
been widespread anger in Greece about official corruption.
Prosecutors
in Athens said the former Pasok minister had laundered money and received
millions of euros in bribes in relation to defence contracts agreed during his
tenure as Greece's defence minister, from 1996 to 2001.
The
contracts related to the purchase of German submarines and Russian missile
systems for the Greek navy, the court heard.
As well as
Tsochatzopoulos, 16 out of 18 co-defendants were convicted of involvement in
the fraud, including his wife Vicky Tsamati, ex-wife Gudrun Tsochatzopoulos and
daughter Areti Tsochatzopoulos.
The court
said they had co-operated with the former minister to launder the bribes
through property purchases and offshore companies.
Culture of
impunity
The BBC's
Athens correspondent, Mark Lowen, says Tsochatzopoulos has come to be seen in
Greece as a symbol of official corruption, against a background of anger among
Greeks weary of tightening their own belts to cope with the government's
austerity measures.
Frequent
allegations of corruption have been levelled at Greece's political class, which
has enjoyed a culture of impunity, our correspondent says, and it's widely
believed that this judgement is simply the tip of the iceberg.
Tsochatzopoulos
was sentenced to eight years in prison in April, on separate charges of
submitting false income declarations to hide his wealth.
In that
case, he was also ordered to pay a fine of 520,000 euros ($705,640).
The
conviction of Tsochatzopoulos is the latest in a series of corruption cases
involving prominent public figures.
In
February, a former mayor of the city of Thessaloniki, Vassilis
Papageorgopoulos, was jailed after being found guilty of embezzlement.
There is
immense public pressure to act, with widespread disgust among citizens that
they have been pummelled by austerity while politicians are deemed to have got
away with crimes for too long, our correspondent says.
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