Greek MPs vote to indict former finance minister over Swiss bank accounts

Papaconstantinou is accused of removing relatives’ names from list of Greeks with accounts in Geneva

Greece's former finance minister George Papaconstantinou will face a panel of judges after MPs voted in favour of indicting him over his handling of a list of Greeks with bank accounts in Switzerland.

A majority in Greece’s 300-seat parliament voted early today to ask a panel of judges to determine if Mr Papaconstantinou, a former finance minister in the government of George Papandreou, should be tried on charges including criminal breach of trust and falsifying a document.

Mr Papaconstantinou is being investigated for allegedly removing relatives' names from a list of Greeks with accounts at a branch of HSBC Holdings in Geneva.

The so-called Lagarde list is an electronic file of 2,062 people with deposits at the branch that was given to the government in 2010 by France's then-finance minister, Christine Lagarde.

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Mr Papaconstantinou, who negotiated Greece's first bailout by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund in 2010, denied the charges speaking in parliament yesterday.

Eoin Burke-Kennedy

Eoin Burke-Kennedy

Eoin Burke-Kennedy is Economics Correspondent of The Irish Times