Panagiotis Saxonis

The former mayor of Thessaloniki, Vassilis Papageorgopoulos, says he will take his appeal against a jail sentence for embezzlement to the Supreme Court.

“I think everyone realizes that my name has been unjustly blackened,” the ex-public official said in a statement. “The verdict against me was a matter of expediency. I was a scapegoat. My only hope is the Supreme Court.”

A court in Thessaloniki on Monday reduced a life sentence for embezzlement imposed on the city’s former Mayor Vassilis Papageorgopoulos earlier this year to a 12-year term but the ex-official insisted that he has been wrongly accused and called on Prime Minister Antonis Samaras to intervene on his behalf.

The former mayor of Thessaloniki, Vasilis Papageorgopoulos, on Tuesday denied charges that he is responsible for the embezzlement of 17.9 million euros from the municipality's coffers on Day 41 of his appeal trial, which will determine whether he will face life in prison - the strictest sentence ever passed down by a first-instance court to a public official accused of financial crimes.