File photo.
A 55-year-old man was due to appear before prosecutors in the southern city of Sparta on Wednesday after authorities accused him of keeping his father’s body in a commercial freezer for years in order to continue collecting pension payments.
According to state broadcaster ERT, the man is suspected of concealing his father’s death so he could continue receiving both his father’s pension and that of his late mother, whose pension had been transferred to her husband as the surviving beneficiary.
The case came to light after police summoned the man for questioning over his father’s disappearance. He initially claimed the elderly man was living in Athens under the care of a woman, but investigators determined that account was false, ERT reported.
Police, accompanied by a judicial official, searched a guesthouse owned by the suspect and used as his residence in the Mystras area. In the basement, they found the elderly man’s body inside a commercial freezer.
