Eight years after the claims of the two former protected witnesses on the bribery of ten politicians by the Novartisthe One -Member Criminal Court will announce today its decision on ‘Maximus Sarafi“And” Catherine Keles “who have been tried for false deposition and false misrepresentation for months.

The court has been evaluating all the evidence last April, examined the lawyers, including the former prime minister Antonis Samaras and former and current ministers, the witnesses, he checked the positions of the two sides, heard the apologies of the two former protected witnesses and the lawyers’ speeches of both the suits and the defendants to weigh all the parameters of the case. A case that, according to the laws, was deliberately manipulated by their alleged involvement, which they consider “centrally designed”, with the aim of affecting the opponents of the then government.

Political persons named in 2017 and 2018 to then corruption prosecutors as “recipients of money” by the pharmaceutical industry were audited by justice without finding any evidence against them and their cases came to the archive.

After a long proceedings, at the end of August, the court heard the proposal of Prosecutor Irene Pelekanou, who called for the guilt of the Filistor Destbasidis and Maria Marangeli, such as the real names of the two defendants, for specific acts. At the same time, he called for their exemption for the accusation of false misrepresentation, since, as he said, the “Sarafis” and “Keles” what they claimed was after being called upon to testify to the then prosecutors of corruption in the context of an investigation.

Today, the president of the court is going to announce whether the two defendants are guilty or not for what they said by involved in ten politicians in the Novartis scandal.

If she adopts prosecutor’s legal assessment as formulated, then Ms Marangelis will be found guilty of almost all of the acts attributed to her, while her co -defendant, Filistor Destabasidis, will be found guilty of some of the acts she faces.

Mrs Pelekanou called for “Catherine Kelesi” guilt for eight acts of false deposit about what she had claimed on bribery, at the expense of them. Antonis Samaras, Andrea Loverdou, Mari Salma, Adoni Georgiadis, Yiannis Stournara, Lina Nikolopoulou, Dimitris Avramopoulos and Nikos Maniadakis.

As the prosecutor had stated, Mrs Marangelis had testified what she had testified as facts, “facts about which he had a direct perception”. He had also called for Mr Destbasidis’ conviction for part of his deposits on AD. Georgiadis, G. Stournaras, L. Nikolopoulou and D. Avramopoulos, while for his other testimonies, he proposed his exemption from the crime of false incentives, as he said, that “Sarafis” to them, essentially conveyed his information to him.

Since the court rules for the guilt of the two defendants, the maximum sentence provided for for each act, before the merger of penalties, is three years.

The two defendants arrived in the dock, after the financial prosecutor’s office ruled in October 2024 that “Maximos Sarafis” and “Catherine Kelesi” do not qualify for the maintenance of the protection status from criminal consequences. Thus, at the end of their criminal immunity, the lawsuits they had filed against them, the ten politicians who claimed to have received money from Novartis to keep the industry in the drug industry strong.

Mrs Marangelis had worked for many years near the head of Novartis in Greece, Konstantinos Frouzis, while Mr Destbasidis was a business executive.