“These people are not stupid! They said consciously, lies. They had deceit“, Testified in the One -Member Criminal Court in the trial of the two former protected witnesses in the Novartis case, Mrs Lina Nikolopoulou, wife of the Bank of Greece Governor Yiannis Stournaras.

The witness argued that she was involved in the case of the illegal practices of the pharmaceutical industry, aiming to hurt her husband, who said, “It was a emblematic enemy of SYRIZA“

Stating that the case of the false deposits of the current accused Filistoras Destabasidis and Maria Marangeli “fell like Armageddon on my head,” she explained to the court of her company since 2008. As she pointed out, she had a limited and very specific collaboration with Novartis, which was “no.” Mrs Nikolopoulou said: ‘I have only done two things with Novartis. A 2013 journalist training seminar, commissioned through the National School of Public Health, and an event for the Harvard Project, at the invitation of the NRC. Net revenue for my company was 2,500 euros“

For the accusations she had accepted on “excessive sponsorships from Novartis”, the witness testified that the pharmaceutical industry was never a top sponsor of her company and stressed: “The amounts not only did not increase, but have declined. In nine years we got a total of 150,000 euros, net 9,500. ” She also cited the checks done in her finances and said that “Absolutely found anything“

As for the claims of her company involvement as a vehicle for politician bribery, Mrs Nikolopoulou said: “They wrote that the prime minister and the prime minister had been bribing there! I got 20,000 euros in total, the net was 2,400 euros. And to do it pro bono, from that money we couldn’t even give 600 euros to the prime minister! “

The witness, answering a question about her relationship with the then chief of Novartis Constantine Frouzis, said he was institutionally aware of him as president of the pharmaceutical association, while pointing out that “Never approached me personally“

Asked by the prosecutor about why they wanted to “morally and socially destroy Yiannis Stournaras”, as she said, Mrs Nikolopoulou replied: “They could not be fired from the Bank of Greece, so they said” hitting his wife … “

Prosecutor: Why do you think that happened?
Witness: The drachma gang. They believed that this would bend Yiannis Stournaras. Underestimated the power of truth.
Prosecutor: Do you have something more specific? Names, relationships?
Witness: I only know that my husband was a emblematic enemy of SYRIZA. I can’t substantiate anything more.

Finally, Mrs Nikolopoulou said that when 2018 she filed a lawsuit against the two protected witnesses at the time, she proposed Destampasidis and Marangelis, then Novartis executives, without knowing that the same faces were “hoodlums”. As he pointed out: ‘Then I didn’t know who the protected ones were. I called the people I knew – Destampasidis and Marangelis – because together we worked together and knew the truth“