Greek ex-minister Tsochatzopoulos found guilty of fraud
Tsochatzopoulos convicted of money laundering to hide bribes received from weapons purchases
A former Greek defence minister and co-founder of the country's once-mighty Socialist Party, Akis Tsochatzopoulos, has been found guilty of setting up a money-laundering network to cover the trail of millions of dollars in bribes he is said to have pocketed from government weapons purchases.
After a five-month trial - the highest-profile case against a Greek politician in more than two decades - judges convicted Tsochatzopoulos, 74, along with 16 other defendants, including his wife, his daughter and several business partners.
All were found to have colluded with him to launder the bribe money using a network of offshore companies and property purchases. Tsochatzopoulos was sentenced to 20 years in prison and will appeal.
He was sentenced in March to eight years for concealing assets from the authorities, chiefly for failing to report the purchase of a house near the Acropolis, one of several properties connected to the money-laundering scheme.
Tsochatzopoulos, who has been in custody since his arrest in April last year, accused the authorities of political persecution and state violence during the trial, which featured vicious exchanges between him and his former associates.
He is the most senior government official to stand trial since 1991, when former prime minister Andreas Papandreou was acquitted on charges of accepting bribes in return for forcing state companies to prop up a troubled private bank.
Tsochatzopoulos' lawyer, Leonidas Kotsalis, said he had "strong reservations about the legal substantiation" of claims that his client accepted bribes.
The court heard that Tsochatzopoulos pocketed nearly US$75 million in bribes while serving as defence minister from 1996 to 2001, signing two major deals worth an estimated US$4 billion for a Russian missile defence system and German submarines.
Tsochatzopoulos had repeatedly called for members of a political and defence council that co-signed those contracts - including two former prime ministers, Costas Simitis and George Papandreou - to testify at his trial. But the request was rejected by the judges, who said the bribery accusations, not the arms deals, were under scrutiny.
The conviction on Monday was unusual in a country where top state officials are rarely prosecuted. But over the past year, the government of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has intensified a crackdown on corruption.