Greek court gives dead man six-month suspended jail sentence

[jimmy olsen]

Maybe there's a tradition of faking one's death to escape jail time in Greece?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/30/greek-court-convicts-dead-man-of-theft-gives-him-six-month-suspended-jail-sentence-0

Greek court gives dead man six-month suspended jail sentence

Defence lawyer explains that his client was dead but Thessaloniki court continues with sentencing anyway
Associated Press

Thursday 30 April 2015 02.29 BST 

A Greek court has convicted a dead man of stealing electricity from a power utility, giving him a six-month suspended jail sentence.

His defence lawyer, Christos Bakelas, told the Thessaloniki court that his client was dead.

He asked to have the trial deferred until he could deliver a death certificate. But the court refused, and on Tuesday convicted the man in absentia.


Thessaloniki police records show the 46-year-old unemployed father of three died on 8 April, but Bakelas was not told until the eve of the trial.

The man was charged last year after activists reconnected his power supply that had been cut by the electricity company for unpaid bills.

Bakelas said he was astonished by the court's decision and had not experienced anything like it in his 25 years as a lawyer.

[The Brain]

The court didn't swallow everything the lawyer said and actually wanted credible evidence for the guy's death? Oh those Greeks!

[jimmy olsen]

The court didn't swallow everything the lawyer said and actually wanted credible evidence for the guy's death? Oh those Greeks!

Courts delay things all the time and for much less serious reasons than the death of the acccussed. This is an easy thing to prove or disprove and if the lawyer is lying he can be held in contempt.

[The Brain]

The court didn't swallow everything the lawyer said and actually wanted credible evidence for the guy's death? Oh those Greeks!

Courts delay things all the time and for much less serious reasons than the death of the acccussed. This is an easy thing to prove or disprove and if the lawyer is lying he can be held in contempt.

It's so easy that his own lawyer failed to do it.

[Sheilbh]

Do they maybe need the judgement to be registered as a debtor against his estate?

[grumbler]

Remember, this is a British "newspaper" so unlikely to contain the whole story.  I suspect that the real reason the court went ahead with sentencing was to save time and money.  A conviction and suspended sentence just means a conviction, which, as Sheilbh noted, may be important in probate.