An appellate-level prosecutor in Athens on Wednesday again recommended that six former members of Greece’s privatization fund (HRADF), who served between 2013 and 2014, be tried for not “beneficially exploiting” 28 public properties – a development expected to rekindle stinging criticism by the country’s institutional creditors.
The latter, including the IMF and the EU Commission, have previously and very publicly condemned an ongoing legal saga that has implicated three technocrats sent by creditors to assist the bailout-dependent country in exploiting its assets, replete with indictments, appeals, summary acquittals, appeals by prosecutors and hearings by top courts.
The latest legal twist on Wednesday is the prosecutor’s recommendation – the second by the same judicial official, Andreas Karaflos – to a council of appellate justices, namely, that the six individuals be tried for felony breach of faith.
A supreme court decision merely returned the indictment to the appellate level prosecutor’s office several months ago. The head of the prosecutor’s office then again appointed the same prosecutor to submit a new proposal / recommendation so that the case can be re-examined, anew.
Besides institutional creditors, three EU member-states from where the trio of Commission technocrats hail from, Italy, Spain and Slovakia, respectively, have also lodged complaints with the leftist-rightist coalition government.
