His case was closed by the will of the Judicial Council. The testimony of the protected witnesses about his involvement in the Novartis donations was not confirmed.
By Ioanna Mandrou
It was unanimously decided by the Council of Misdemeanors of Athens to exonerate former minister and current PASOK MP Andreas Loverdos, whose name was implicated in the Novartis case for bribery.
With the decision of the judicial council for Andreas Loverdos, the file related to the indictment of ten politicians who were involved with the testimony of the protected witnesses in bribes in the context of the investigations into illegal practices followed by the pharmaceutical giant in our country was finally closed.
The acquittal of Loverdos took place approximately five years after the corruption prosecutor Eleni Touloupaki forwarded the relevant file with the names of the ten politicians to the Parliament, while later a prosecution was brought against him which was not confirmed by the court proceedings that followed.
The judges of the Council, evaluating all the elements of the case file, accepted the proposal of the prosecutor Maria Kapsos, who had also been in favor of the discharge of Andreas Loverdos.
In particular, in the “bye-law” of the parliament, issued by the judicial council with the rapporteur of the trial court, Athanasios Marneris, it is pointed out that there are no indications to bring charges against Andreas Loverdos for the criminal act of bribing a political person who was alleged, according to the charge of had taken place in Athens in the period from 1.4.2011 to 17.5.2012.
The judges also note in their reasoning, that there is no criminal liability of A. Loverdos for overpricing the controversial drugs of Novartis, since from all the evidence, there is no evidence to support the charge against the former minister.
The judges dedicate a special chapter to the evaluation of the statements of the protected witnesses with the code names “Aikaterini Kelesi” and “Maximos Sarafis”, noting that their sworn statements are vague, in the sense that they do not include specific incidents, place, time, other circumstances of bribery , nor is the exact amount of it specified, and they themselves were neither eyewitnesses nor witnesses.
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