In particular, the Three-member Misdemeanor Appeals Court accepted the objection submitted by the six for whom an appeal was filed by the Prosecutor’s Office against their acquittal, including the then Regional Governor of Attica.
Now, in the second degree, the trial will continue with eight defendants in the dock.
According to the decision announced by the president of the court, “the Prosecutor’s appeal was out of time without any reason of force majeure. Therefore, the appeal is rejected as inadmissible”.
Eight officials of the local government and competent services are on trial for the case, who have been sentenced in the first instance to prison sentences that reach up to six years per case.
“Criminal charges were used to tarnish the great work we accomplished”
After the judicial development, the former governor of Attica, Rena Dourou, made a statement in which she states, among other things, that “he was prosecuted like no other elected member of the Local Government with prosecutions, none of which related to financial irregularities”.
Rena Douro’s full statement is as follows:
“Today, with a unanimous decision, the Tripartite Court of Appeal of Athens rejected the appeal brought by the Prosecutor against the acquittal decision in the case of Mandra, which was issued after a hearing of two years. In this way, my acquittal is also confirmed in the second degree.
The political establishment and its representatives could never accept that the citizens of Attica elected in 2014 a left-wing regional governor in the largest Region of our homeland. A huge effort was made to use the criminal prosecutions to tarnish the great work done by the Life Force in the administration of the Attica Region.
Because that way it was easier for them to appear themselves as the initiators of our own flagship projects. 500 million euros of critical flood infrastructure projects in the context of holistic planning, which included, among many others, the flood protection project in Mandra and its road network.
Projects such as the regeneration of Falirikos bay and hundreds of others in every corner of Attica with the sole concern of our Administration being the protection of life and property of citizens.
I was prosecuted like no other elected member of the Local Government, with prosecutions none of which related to financial irregularities, nor directly to me as a person, but all of them had to do with the alleged negligence of the regional bodies.
I believe that one way to protect the prestige and morality of our political system is for us politicians to be judged for our actions by natural judges. In this way the innocent will be rendered without shadows in the society.
According to this reasoning, I went through all the stages of the criminal procedure, in disgust, in silence but also with pain, always respecting the rules of the rule of law.
Today I do not celebrate – the pain of the loss of human life never fades.
Today I am not asking for an apology from all those political opponents who pointed the finger at me as guilty.
I do not ask that some journalists who wrote libels against me be corrected, I do not consider this decision in general as a personal vindication.
Because I continue to believe that justice may require patience and determination, but in the end the truth wins.”
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