Top court prosecutor brings forward court date for convicted cleaner

Following a decision by Greece’s Supreme Court prosecutor to review the ruling in the case of a school cleaner convicted to 10 years in jail for forging her elementary school certificate to find her job, Xeni Dimitriou on Friday intervened anew to set the date of the woman’s new hearing.

A five-member criminal appeals court in Larisa will hear on November 28 the women’s application to suspend her sentence.

Her lawyer has already appealed the ruling and will seek her release from prison pending retrial. She has remained in prison for 20 days.

Earlier in the day, Justice Minister Michalis Kalogirou reportedly met with the cleaner during a visit at the women’s prison in Thiva, where she is being held.

The 53-year-old woman, who worked as a cleaner at a kindergarten in the city of Volos, was convicted of fraud in the first instance to 15 years in prison for presenting a document showing she had graduated from the sixth grade of elementary school when she had only gone up to year five in order to be eligible for a job in the public sector in 1996.

The sentence was reduced to 10 years on appeal.