In the final line for the critical verdict of the One -Member Court of Appeal, the trial of the seven defendants in the case of illegal grants by him was entered into OPECEPE In 2019 in young and newcomers, a case file that, along with others, was formed after a long investigation carried out by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office.
The court concludes the apologies of the four of the accused, farmers in areas of Thessaly and their associates considered to be fraudulent against the European Union. The other three defendants were not apologized and in the trial they are represented by their lawyers. The defendants have raised the issue of eliminating the criminal since the start of the trial, on the grounds that the money they allegedly received with false information has been returned. The amounts do not exceed 90 thousand euros on a case -by -case basis.
In her apology, the first defendant, a lawyer specializing in the Environment Law, who in the case file received a total amount of about 36,000 euros with false and inaccurate statements, said that as they had bought land in Thessaly they sought in 2018 to lease for summer grazing. So they came into contact with a person who had “family areas”.
President: They were public forests though
Defendant: It wasn’t. I say it from my specialization. Then there were no forest maps so I had no information from there, and I looked at Google where I saw satellite images. I had no reason to question or have a doubt.
The defendant described as “wrong” as the lease listed in the price of the price for 10 euros a year and not the acre “I did a mistake that I didn’t notice. I saw ten euros only … why would they rent it for 10 euros per 1000 acres?” He said to hear the prosecutor’s response “But you signed!”
As the prosecutor told her: “Are you a little weird what you say. You are a lawyer, the counterparties are people with experience and you didn’t pay attention to this obvious?
The former owner of the Reception Center told the Court that the applications in question included the necessary supporting documents, as OPECEPE requested, namely the lease statement and the coordinates of the leased land. As he pointed out, “I would not endanger my business and my course for 40,000 euros”.
For his part, the owner of the areas in question said they belonged to his father and inherited them. As he said, after doing the legal action and leasing them. Answering a question from home to rents, the defendant said that “the market was moving”.
The trial will continue at the end of the month with the prosecution.