The International Court in The Hague announced recently that Greece can inform the Court about the legitimate interests that the country has in the case of the appeal of Germany against Italy. This comes shortly after decisions taken by the Italian courts to compensate victims of Nazi crimes.
”The Court approves of Greece’s intervention in the case as a third party”, stated the Court in a statement, underlining that: ”Athens might thus inform the Court about the nature of rights and legitimate interests, which could affect the decision of the Court.”
Germany had appealed to the Court in December 2008, seeking to recognise that the Italian courts considering cases of Nazi crimes, violate the privilege of immunity of the German government. Doubt is expressed over an Italian court decision which ordered the seizure of two properties of the German state in Italy, at the request of the relatives of victims of the massacre in Distomo in June 1944, in which 217 people were killed.
Greece had asked for the intervention of Prime Minister George Papandreou in the case in January, who had talked about the “special symbolism” of the Distomo case for Greeks. Greek intervention should be made in writing to the Court prior to August 5th. Berlin refuses to compensate the descendants of victims of Distomo, arguing that the issue of damages has been settled by a bilateral agreement between Germany and Greece in 1960.
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