By Ioanna Mandrou

As unreliable characterized the Prosecutor of the Special Court the prosecutors examined as witnesses against of former minister Dimitris Papagelopoulosproposing her dismissal of the former minister for the charge of breach of duty.

According to the lady Olga Smyrli the complaints against Papagelopoulos, by three prosecutors (Georgia Tsatani, Eleni Raikou and Panagiotis Athanasiou) were not confirmed by other evidence, while their testimonies, according to the prosecutor, were unreliable, contradictory and untrue.

The exemption Mrs. Smyrlis also proposed to the Special Court for the prosecutor Eleni Touloupaki which is being tried for abuse of power regarding her failure to send KINAL’s reports to the Parliament about two former ministers of health under the SYRIZA government on drug pricing issues.

The public prosecutor’s office also proposed the acquittal of Dimitris Papagelopoulos, who is on trial as a moral author in the omission Touloupakis.

The prosecutor’s proposal in detail

Exoneration for complaints against prosecutor Tsatani

The proposal of the Prosecutor of the Special Court for the complaints against Dimitris Papagelopoulos by the honorary appeals prosecutor Georgia Tsatani, who handled the case of the businessman Andreas Vgenopoulos, was acquitted.

According to the prosecutor Olga Smyrlis, the actions of the prosecutor Georgia Tsatani in the case of Vgenopoulos were characterized “as diversion” while her testimony was not considered convincing.
Georgia Tsatani had from the first moment denounced the then minister Dimitris Papagelopoulos for pressures to handle the Vgenopoulos case at his suggestion, accusations which caused a parliamentary investigation which was not completed.

According to the prosecutor of the Special Court, the allegations of pressure from Papagelopoulos in the Vgenopoulos case were not confirmed by any evidence.

Exoneration for complaints of prosecutor Athanasiou

In terms the complaints against Papagelopoulos by the prosecutor Panagiotis Athanasiou who was the head of the Economic Prosecutor’s Office, Mrs. Smyrli spoke of unreliable testimony, as she argued that the witness fell into contradictions, while attributing to him “empathy against Dimitris Papagelopoulos” on the occasion of the non-renewal of his term at the Economic Prosecutor’s Office.

Panagiotis Athanasiou has denounced the former minister Dimitris Papagelopoulos for interfering with his work in the handling of cases, such as tax audits of the owner of the Sky television station Yiannis Alafouzos, the case of the businessman Andreas Vgenopoulos and also the journalist of “NEON”, Giorgos Papachristou for the who – according to the accusation – asked him (Papagelopoulos) to fabricate evidence against him.

According to Mrs. Smyrlis, something like this (fabricating evidence against Papachristou) was impossible, because to do something like this, the participation of many services and many people is required.

“Athanasiou, stressed Mrs. Smyrli, often visited Papaggelopoulos for matters related to the financial prosecution. Athanasiou had expressed his interest in renewing his term and had expressed it to the then Prosecutor of the Supreme Court, Xeni Dimitriou. However, it did not proceed due to service problems that arose along the way. He shows evidence of empathy against Dimitrios Papagelopoulos for not renewing his term”, concluded Mrs. Smyrli, who citing a series of service issues for the prosecutor Pan. Athanasiou and concluded that “the credibility of the witness is being checked”.

Finally, the prosecutor emphasized in her motion that the complaints of Athanasiou against Papagelopoulos are not sufficient to support the charge, because they are not confirmed by other evidence, while the witness himself is tested as unreliable.

Relief for Raiku complaints

The prosecutor of the Special Court in her appeal also called the testimony against former minister Dimitris Papagelopoulos by prosecutor Eleni Raikou unreliable who had been head of the Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and resigned from her position, denouncing pressure from the minister on trial to fabricate evidence against politicians in the Novartis case.

“Raikou, the prosecutor of the Special Court emphasized, had not mentioned anything about what she subsequently complained about, that she was pressured by D. Pappagelopoulos regarding the Novartis case, neither to the then Supreme Court Prosecutor Mrs. Xeni Dimitriou, nor to her supervisor deputy prosecutor of the AP Dim. Papageorgiou”.
As Mrs. Smyrli noted, “in her resignation statement, she did not make any reference to Papagelopoulos’ phone calls and did not name anyone as responsible for her resignation, but referred to large interests in the pharmaceutical field and to corrupt officials.”

In conclusion, according to the Prosecutor of the Special Court, Raikou’s complaints about interference in her work in the investigation of the illegal practices of Novartis, by the former minister Dimitris Papagelopoulos, are unreliable, untrue and unfounded.

In fact, Mrs. Smyrli underlined that in the Special Court, the prosecutor Eleni Raikou, reconstructed what she had reported against the former minister, speaking of “her appreciation”, thus trying to take back the original complaints.

Dismissal and abuse of power

As far as the charge of abuse of power against prosecutor Eleni Touloupaki and Dimitris Papagelopoulos as a moral perpetrator is concerned, Mrs. Smyrlis’ proposal to the Special Court was exculpatory.

The accusation related to the omission of the prosecutor Touloupakis to send to the Parliament for the further reports of KINAL against two former ministers of health of SYRIZA (Pan. Kouroumplis and Andreas Xanthous) for matters related to the pricing of medicines.

According to the prosecutor of the Special Court, no evidence emerged from the hearing to support the guilt of the prosecuting official, but neither for Dimitris Papagelopoulos.

In particular, according to the prosecutor’s proposal, Mrs. Touloupaki did not commit the crime of abuse, because the KINAL reports against Kouroumplis and Xanthos had not been a separate case file and had been incorporated as documents in the large case file for the Novartis case. As Mrs. Smyrli pointed out, they were not forwarded to the Parliament, not even when they were received, before Eleni Touloupaki, by her predecessor Eleni Raikou who had been the head of the Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.

In addition, according to the prosecutor, the KINAL reports were unclear, without documentation and without evidence, which would substantiate the allegations that it was not made during the ministry of Pan. Fraudulent drug pricing.