Monastery land trade goes under scrutiny
A fresh investigation into an exchange of land between the state and a monastery on Mount Athos was ordered yesterday in order to establish whether taxpayers were swindled out of more than 100 million euros. Supreme Court prosecutor Giorgos Sanidas initiated the probe after mounting speculation about the deal between the government and the Vatopedi Monastery in the semi-autonomous monastic community. Sanidas has raised questions about the exchange of property and the approval given by the state’s legal committee, claiming that its approval of the transaction was either the result of «indifference» or had been quite intentional, in the full knowledge that it would «harm the state and benefit the Vatopedi Monastery.» The prosecutor believes that the ministers whose approval was needed for the transaction to go ahead had been «misled» by the government’s legal advisers. Sanidas also wants the role of the experts who valued the properties being exchanged to be scrutinized as he believes that there were major discrepancies between the valuations used in the framework of the deal and the actual market value. The prosecutor believes that the land received by the state from the monastery was overvalued while the properties it was given in return were undervalued, such as an 860-hectare plot of land in Ouranopolis, Halkidiki, which was valued at 1.1 million euros, even though its official value for tax purposes had been set at 8.4 million euros. Sanidas is expected to summon up to 20 people for questioning in connection with the case as he seeks to establish whether anyone should be charged with «defrauding the state.»
