An Athens court has found two former senior officials of the country’s now-defunct agricultural payments agency OPEKEPE guilty of covering up criminal activity and repeatedly failing in their official duties, while referring a related fraud charge to a higher court, officials said.
The Three-Member Court of Appeal for Felonies ruled that former OPEKEPE president Dimitris Mellas and former technical controls director Athanasia Reppa were guilty of aiding a criminal and breach of duty, both committed repeatedly at misdemeanor level.
However, the court followed a prosecutor’s recommendation to upgrade a charge of suppressing a document to a felony, citing alleged financial damage exceeding 120,000 euros. The case will be referred to the Athens Three-Member Felony Court.
In its ruling, the court said evidence from a months-long trial showed a “striking increase” in declared grazing land in 2018, as previously noted by Reppa, amid suspicions of systematic fraud and the diversion of funds to producers through improper mechanisms.
The court also cited internal audits ordered by then-OPEKEPE president Grigoris Varras, which produced findings compiled by Paraskevi (Vivi) Tycheropoulou, former head of the agency’s internal audit directorate.
