Mendonit se Shqiptaret jane pergjegjes per cdo vjedhje automobili ne Europe ?
Ja ketu nje lajm nga BBC rreth krimit institucional Grek.
Greece accused of illegal car seizures
Greece stands accused of victimising drivers of foreign-registered cars - hitting them with huge fines and confiscating their vehicles for no reason.
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Parliament notes that a very substantial number of vehicles has been seized, confiscated and sold at auction, which it considers... to be contrary to the right of property and freedom of movement
European Parliament resolution
Report by Michael Cashman MEP
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That is the essence of a resolution adopted in February by the European Parliament, on the basis of petitions by citizens of several EU countries.
Until recently, the drivers were frequently charged with smuggling, and some have even spent time in police cells.
"I don't want to start describing the conditions. There were mice, no clean beds, no water, no nothing," one UK-based Greek businessman, Nikos Koutrouvelis, told the BBC News website.
"The film Midnight Express is a mild version of what we are going through."
'Smuggling'
Greek officials confiscated two Porsche sports cars from Mr Koutrouvelis, in 1995 and 1997, and fined him one-million-euros (£680,000).
London accountant Keith Salter, meanwhile, escaped with his ageing Daihatsu, but an eight-year legal battle against a 40,000-euro fine has cost him £20,000.
They are not alone. Greek lawyer Theodoros Asprogerakas-Grivas estimates that confiscations are currently running at the rate of about one per week, and that 2,000 vehicles have been seized since 1993.
Though some of those prosecuted have been car traders, many have been private citizens visiting Greece on holiday or on business.
The Greek government says that all are guilty of trying to evade paying registration tax on their vehicles.
But the European Parliament says that in the 25 cases it has studied the drivers were innocent and Greece was guilty of failing to apply European law.
The European Commission takes the same view, and launched proceedings against the country at the European Court of Justice in 2004.
Greek residents?
The law in question is directive 83/182 of 1983, which says that a person resident in one EU country can keep a car for up to six months in another EU country before having to pay that country's car taxes.
One of the problems seems to be that the Greek authorities think it is possible for someone to live abroad, and yet to be defined as a "resident" of Greece - and residents are obliged to pay Greek registration and road tax.
Take the case of Petros Papadopoulos, a Greek living in Germany, who fell foul of customs on a visit to Greece in 2000.
According to his petition to the European Parliament, he showed officials a German residence permit, a ferry ticket showing he had arrived in Greece less than six months earlier, a document from the city authorities of Ingolstadt confirming that he had lived there since 1994 and a German driving licence dated 1995.
But this was not enough. Officials said he was a Greek resident, confiscated the car, and fined him 68,500 euros for not registering it.
For good measure, he has also been fined for not paying Greek road tax between June 1995 and February 2002.
The Parliament's resolution says all those who have filed petitions asking for MEPs' support "were able to give proof of their place of normal residence by appropriate means".
Good faith
Both the Commission and the Parliament also say the Greek fines are out of proportion to the scale of the alleged offence and fail to take account of the "offender's" good faith.
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If you tell people what you are doing, how can you be a smuggler?
Keith Salter
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The good faith of another Greek citizen living and working in Germany in the 1990s, Nikolaos Adamopoulos, would appear to have been accepted by a criminal court in 2001, which cleared him of smuggling and ordered that his car should be returned.
Unfortunately, customs had already auctioned the elderly Mercedes. And even today officials are demanding payment of a 300,000-euro fine for tax evasion.
Keith Salter can also provide strong evidence of good faith - he independently approached Greek Customs to check he could use a UK-registered car on occasional trips to a Greek island.
"They gave me a paper to say it was all right," he says.
"If you tell people what you are doing, how can you be a smuggler?"
Compensation?
Greece has not charged people with smuggling in such cases since a new law came into force in 2002.
An even newer bill, introduced to the Greek parliament in December, promises to limit fines to a maximum of 10,000 euros and would allow confiscation only in extreme cases.
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One Greek lawyer advises anyone travelling to Greece by road to keep proof of the date they entered the country in the car at all times
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It would also offer people in trouble under the old law the chance to pay a much reduced fine - as long as they admitted their guilt and dropped any claim for compensation.
The European Parliament resolution implicitly rejects this solution, stating that the petitioners "have a right to be properly compensated, bearing in mind the prejudice caused to their livelihood and good character".
The drivers most at risk of prosecution are Greek citizens living abroad, and non-Greeks who either travel frequently to Greece by car, or marry a Greek resident.
But one Greek lawyer advises anyone travelling to Greece by road to keep proof of the date they entered the country in the car at all times.
This may be enough to prevent prosecution, though there appears to be no guarantee.
Keith Salter now takes no risks and uses a hired car.
Bishop's limo
What happens to the cars after they are confiscated is, in Nikos Koutrouvelis' words, "a question".
Most are auctioned, but customs can also give them away to other branches of the state.
Christos Rinis, a businessman who had four Mercedes cars taken from him in the 1990s, regularly saw two of them in the town of Komotini, north-eastern Greece.
One, he says, was used by Greek border guards on the look-out for illegal migrants. The other was used for some years as a bishop's official limousine.
Mr Rinis says he kept a set of remote control keys, and was able to lock and unlock the doors as the cleric and his chauffeur glided past.
***Stephen Mulvey (BBC), 06/03/2006
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