Galery

2

1

The veil was lift for one of the most famous cases in Greece associated with the so-called ‘trial ring’ with main characters the former chairman of the first instance court Evangelos Kalousis and the former investigator Konstantina Bourboulia. They were accused of favouritism of a businessman who had taken them on a cruise with his yacht. The five-member court of appeals in Athens reduced the initial penalties imposed on both judicial officers and unanimously acquitted the prominent lawyer Sakis Kehayoglu, who was also a defendant in the case.

According to the court, the process did not prove his involvement for which the first instance had imposed 6-year custody. The prosecutor offered acquittance for doubts. Evangelos Kalousis was acquitted for the same case of bribery and his total sentence of 20 years and 2 months was reduced to 12 years. The sentence imposed on the former investigator Konstantina Bourboulia was reduced to 7 years after the initial 12.

Two businessmen and the former husband of the former investigator were acquitted for the arrest of 2 to 6 years two years after the decision of the court of first instance. The businessman Evstratios Valirakis had 8 months conviction though.

According to the indictment in November 2001, the investigator Bourboulia received through judge Kalousis 40 million drachmas from the businessman Sotiris Kritikos as a bribe not to be convicted for the case of an explosion in a gas station where two people were killed. The prosecutors said the amount was part of a total of 70 million drachmas which she asked the businessman. It is believed that Konstantina Bourboulia and her husband subsequently used the money to buy shares through a brokerage company. The yacht on which the investigator and her friends had fun belonged to Kritikos too.

The Specialized Criminal Court of Appeals of three members saw the cases two years and a half ago. The prosecutor Yiannis Angelis asked all defendants to be sentenced then and stated before the court council that "the case before you is only the ‘tip of the iceberg’ and in particular, only a tenth part of the case known as the ‘trial ring’".

The term first appeared 5 years ago when were published the findings on the involvement of judicial officers, lawyers, businessmen and monks in a criminal network in which judges have pronounced positive about the cases of people who paid them handsomely for it .

It all was unraveled after archimandrite Yakovos Yosakis was indicted for participation in ‘trial ring’ clique operating in Piraeus, which discharged drug dealers. Then followed examinations and spicy stories from the lives of the main characters such as judge Kalousis’ affinities to high and beautiful Russian women and the expensive summer vacations of his colleagues in large resorts. In parallel, the authorities inspected at least six major law firms but most of their employees were not punished severely later for lack of sufficient evidence.