Three-year suspended sentence for Tasos Mandelis

The three-member Court of Appeals has imposed a three-year suspended sentence on former minister Tasos Mandelis, charged with filing false tax statements for 2006 and 2007.

The indicted former minister did not attend the trial, while a similar charge for previous years has been written off due to the five-year statute of limitations.

The prosecutor's motion to the court was to impose a prison sentence of four years which if accepted, would have led to incarceration for Tasos Mantelis.

The court imposed an additional penalty on the former minister of a one-year deprivation of his political rights, along with a fine of 7,500 euros.

Referring to the conviction by the Court of Appeals, the former minister's lawyer, Giannis Iriotis said: "Mandelis will not be the one to blame for the sins of all the politicians", adding that his client did not declare the information, which he is being accused of, because the relevant items were not his own.