The Greek parliament must decide whether to prosecute Yanis Varoufakis for treason

Ex-Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis is being accused of treason - and his critics want to see him stand trial for causing "incalculable damage to the interests of the country."

The Greek supreme court has passed two suits against Varoufakis, which were filed privately, on to parliament.

One suit is from a Greek mayor, and the second is from Panayiotis Giannopoulos, a lawyer who wants to see Varoufakis tried for treason.

According to Greek newspaper Kathimerini, a third suit against Varoufakis is expected to be handed to parliament over his involvement in planning a potential parallel payments system which could have been used to remove Greece from the eurozone.

In a phone conversation with Lord Norman Lamont (former UK Conservative Chancellor) and dozens of international investors, Varoufakis said an alternative payments system that he and a small group had been surreptitiously working on could have been used to "hack" his own ministry in the event of a banking crisis, and the same system could also bring back the drachma.

It's unlikely that Varoufakis will actually ever be prosecuted - the suits filed simply can't be handled by Greece's judiciary because he's a former minister. Given the makeup of parliament, it seems very improbable that the lawmakers would want Varoufakis on trial.

The former finance minister warned that this was coming when he spoke to Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, a journalist at The Telegraph, after the details of the telephone conversation were leaked. He also insisted that leaving the euro was never an aim of the system's establishment.