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Saturday 5 December 2020, 00:02
I had three evacuation orders, a county and possession warrant ordering the hotel to be evacuated and returned to me, too many demands, but the police and the previous government refused to enforce any of them. “Every time I had meetings with ministers and officials at that time, they would reply, ‘We don’t want to and we won’t empty it,'” Aliki Papachela told liberal.gr. “It was the government’s plan at the time to solve the refugee problem,” he added.
She is the owner of the City Plaza hotel, to which the Greek State is obliged to pay 312,500 euros, following her conviction by the European Court of Human Rights. For three years, the Greek state did nothing to return their property, which was being occupied by refugees with the help of solidarity.
Interview with George Fintikakis
He had previously complained that despite the prosecution’s orders and a court decision, however, the police never intervened to evacuate the building …
Many are responsible for the case of the occupation of the City Plaza hotel. The point, as is clear from the historic Court ruling, is that the state had to protect my rights and never did. That is the right to property, that is, article 1 of the Charter of Human Rights. But it didn’t protect me. We had three evacuation prosecutors, a county and occupancy court order for the hotel to be evacuated and returned to me, too many demands, but the police and the previous government refused to enforce any of them. There the decision of the Court was based.
Why do you think the authorities at that time refused to intervene and return your assets?
Because obviously that was the then government’s plan to solve the refugee problem. This is how you chose to deal with the refugee crisis. I remind you that after my hotel another 45 buildings were occupied …
In a previous interview with “F”, you mentioned that the squatters had behind them a large German MKO who financed them and had secured the political occupation by SYRIZA …
Yes, that is exactly what had happened, in regards to the NGO, Medico International. In all the cases in which I had meetings with ministers and officials at that time, I got the same answer, “we don’t want to and we won’t empty it.” And obviously all this happened in consultation. SYRIZA had decided to handle the refugee in this way.
What are you hiding from all this adventure?
First of all, it is the great moral satisfaction after what he suffered. It is also important that the decision was issued in a very short time, something unprecedented for the Court. It is different to wait ten years for it to be justified and different to wait after two years. As for the compensation, the financial damage is not covered at any level with the money that was awarded to me. Only the damage registered in the hotel by the certified expert exceeds 1.5 million euros. 300,000 euros is quite a symbolic amount.
The conclusion of all this history is that we have a decision that condemns the country itself, because it has not been able to protect one of the most basic rights of its citizen, that of property. The basis for the decision is important. Condemns Greece for violating the right to property protection for three years due to the occupation of the applicants’ hotel by immigrants and a group of people acting in solidarity with them. And the condemnation of a country by the Court of Human Rights is something very important, as it sets a precedent.
Whether SYRIZA or ND rules, the state’s job is to protect citizens and their interests. When this is not done, even though the opposite happens and leads to their ruin, someone has to pay.
I think we could not have reached the sentence. The country could have committed under the ECHR procedure and agreed with us a compensation amount, which we had proposed. If this had happened, Greece would not have been condemned. We had proposed a compromise in December 2019, but the State refused and repeated the same proposals as in the past, that is, that the country was in a critical situation, that if the hotel was emptied, it would cause social unrest, etc.
What will be your next steps after the Court’s decision?
The procedure stipulates that within three months from the issuance of the decision, the Greek government can request that the case be taken to the plenary session of the Court of Human Rights. This means a delay of two months, after which there will be an additional three months until the payment is made. The sentence, however, is valid anyway. From now on I will file lawsuits against the Greek State for my full compensation.
