Special Court: What Andreas Loverdos testified about Papagelopoulos and Touloupakis

Ioanna Mandrou

With the testimony of the former PASOK – KINAL member of parliament Andreas Loverdou, the trial before the Special Court continued with the accused former minister Dimitris Papagelopoulos and prosecutor Eleni Toulotypakis.

Mr. Loverdros was examined for the petition of KINAL MPs in 2017, at the expense of the then Minister of Health (in the SYRIZA ANEL government) Univ. Kouroumpli regarding his failure to proceed with pricing the medicines, as he had – in his opinion – an obligation. This report against Kouroumbilis, according to the witness, should have been forwarded to Parliament for further action, just as the statements of the protected witnesses against the ten politicians in the Novartis case were also forwarded.

For this reason, prosecutor Eleni Touloupaki, who succeeded prosecutor Eleni Raikou, who received the KINAL petitions against Kouroumpli, is accused and tried – for the non-transmission of the relevant file.

The former minister Andreas Loverdos, the intention of not forwarding the relevant file to the Parliament for the prosecutor Touloupakis, while for Dimitris Papagelopoulos, if he was behind her decision, he answered relevant questions “I don’t know”.

However, he blamed Mrs. Touloupaki “for not doing her duty”, while for the then Minister of Health Pan. Regarding the non-pricing of medicines, Kouroumpli argued that “objectively, the companies benefited, but I don’t know if it was malicious”.

Loverdos’ testimony in detail
In our reports to Mrs. Raikou we had pointed out how harmful it was not to bill the drugs twice. We moved politically. But there was no reaction. On the contrary, in February 2018, this case came along with the Novartis files and the potential responsibilities of ministers were amortized. In the case file of the ten politicians, our names and mine were detailed, while from the specific report it was only the initials PK.

President: Did Mrs. Touloupaki act fraudulently?

Loverdos: When a file arrives at the Parliament with ten names of politicians and only one was with the initials (PK), it was a clear action, which I don’t know how it went through the then Prosecutor of the Supreme Court. I don’t want to add anything else. What I said is so clear .
It is not possible for a Corruption prosecutor not to know the depreciation period of the Parliament, when he also deals with political crime. All of Greece knows Article 86.

President: Mrs. Touloupaki did not make any move, neither did Mrs. Raikou. Did someone challenge her decision?

Loverdos: I don’t know.

President: Did Mr. Kouroublis want to harm the state?

Loverdos: As a matter of fact he did. He wanted to benefit the companies. I don’t know if it was a trick.
They actually benefited. I don’t want to blame people and indeed, when the matter is closed, when some people took care of it.

Prosecutor: Did you report Mr. Kouroumplis?

Loverdos: No

Prosecutor: When the then corruption prosecutor received these reports, she should have immediately forwarded them to Parliament?

Loverdos: The public prosecutor is not a postman, but he does not conduct an investigation, contrary to the Constitution. He would like a week, ten, fifteen days, a month, are you in time?

Speaker: (Elene Fragakis) So Mrs. Touloupakis didn’t do her duty?

Loverdos: That’s what I mean. Not after certainty that there would be a prosecution for the minister. Only what he had to convey.

They deny the accusations of Papagelopoulos and Toulpoupaki
With the denial of the accusation, the accused in the Special Court, Dimitris Papagelopoulos, former minister and the prosecutor Elenis Touloupaki, were placed on the charges against them and stating that they will prove their innocence.

In particular, prosecutor Eleni Touloupaki stated, when asked by President Vasiliki Iliopoulou, that she “denies the accusation and will prove it false”.

The former head of the Corruption Prosecutor’s Office is accused of abuse of power for not sending the complaints submitted by KINAL against the then Pan ministers to the Parliament. Kouroumplis and Andreas Xanthos who managed the portfolio of the Ministry of Health during SYRIZA ANEL governments.

With the certainty that he is innocent, the former minister Dimitris Papagelopoulos, who served as Deputy Minister of Justice during the SYRIZA ANEL governments, was also placed on the indictment against him.

The former minister, who is facing accusations of moral arbitrariness in abuse of power for Eleni Touloupaki regarding the KINAL complaints against Pan. Kouroumplis, declared that he is “innocent of the charge in question”, adding that “the complaint documents were submitted to prosecutor Eleni Raikou (Eleni Touloupaki’s predecessor at the Corruption Prosecutor’s Office) and she placed them in the Novartis file”.

Regarding the accusations that he interfered in the work of three prosecutors (Georgias Tsatanis, Eleni Raikou and Pan. Athanasiou), the former minister stated.

“Regarding complaints from the prosecutors, I will counter not with my own words to their own words, but with their own words, where they testified (to prosecutors and the Parliament) because apart from contradictions that reach the limits of irrationality, the their lies are self-evident. I will counter their lies with their original lies with their later lies.”

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