Prosecutor proposes conditional release, with 100-million-euro bail, for Lavrentiadis

A prosecutor on Thursday proposed that Lavrentis Lavrentiadis, the former major stakeholder in Proton Bank who is in custody pending trial for embezzlement, post a record 100 million euros in bail to secure his release from prison before the scheduled expiry of the 18-month maximum detention period in June.

In his proposal to the Council of Appeals Court Judges, appeals court prosecutor Panayiotis Kapsimalis said the 100 million euros, which he insisted Lavrentiadis possesses, should be paid in addition to the 160 million euros in assets belonging to the businessman that have already been seized.

The council is expected to decide in the coming days on whether to approve Kapsimalis’s proposal for the 100-million-euro bail, which would be the biggest in Greek judicial history and in the world.

The highest bail to date in Greece was the 5 million euros paid last month by businessman Dimitris Kontominas to secure his release pending trial in connection with the Hellenic PostBank (TT) unsecured loans scandal in which Lavrentiadis is also implicated.

According to sources, the prosecutor Kapsimalis proposed that 29 of the 47 suspects who face criminal charges in connection with the Proton Bank embezzlement scandal should be indicted to trial along with Lavrentiadis. Of the 29, the prosecutor said that four individuals should post 200,000 euros in bail each.

Lavrentiadis, 43, has been in Attica’s Korydallos Prison since December 2012. For most of that time, he has been in the prison’s hospital and has made several unsuccessful appeals for his release, citing serious dermatological and psychological ailments.