Greece: Ex-minister who headed euro campaign convicted over Swiss bank account declaration

Published November 17, 2015

A former finance minister who led Greece's successful effort to join the euro has been sentenced to four years in prison for filing an inaccurate income declaration related to money deposited in a Swiss bank account.

An appeals court Tuesday upheld an earlier conviction and sentenced Yiannos Papantoniou and his wife Stavroula Kourakou to four years each over the 2009 declaration.

Both were granted the right to pay a fine in lieu of their sentences.

The 66-year-old Papantoniou, who served as finance minister between 1994 and 2001, argued that the error was not deliberate and was later corrected.

Papantoniou is the second Socialist minister to be convicted in recent years. In 2013, former defense minister Akis Tsochadzopoulos received a 20-year sentence for bribery-related offences.

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