Androulakis in the Examination: I will not hide like others behind the “dress” of secrecy

The president of PASOK-KINAL, Nikos Androulakis, at the beginning of his testimony to the Commission of Inquiry, according to information from his party’s sources, is said to have emphasized that “the wiretapping case is not a personal matter. It is a question of democracy. It demonstrates the institutional crisis and the undermining of control mechanisms.”

And that he continued by stating the following: “It highlights a culture of governance, centralized, arrogant with a sense of decadent dark omnipotence. It reinforces the citizens’ lack of trust in the political system because it sends a message of impunity and dishonesty of powerful political and economic actors at the expense of the people, at the expense of the public interest. In this case they can monitor anyone they want for no reason and without giving an account.

In a critical geopolitical upheaval, Mr. Mitsotakis showed that he understands our national security by changing the selection criteria for the commander of the EYP to place one of his own children without any previous experience in this very critical position for our national interests in such key positions, which proved to be unsuitable by general admission.

From the first moment that the affair of my watch was revealed, all my energies have been directed towards shedding abundant light on every aspect. Institutionally, legally and transparently. We have a double scandal. An illegal surveillance scandal and a cover-up scandal.

The illegal surveillance scandal had 2 arms: the one revealed by the European Parliament investigation with the attempt to trap my mobile with the illegal predator software, and the one revealed thanks to the independent authority to ensure the privacy of communications, ADAE, i.e. the illegal monitoring of me by the EYP.

It is obvious that this surveillance had one goal: to hold an entire faction hostage at its most critical political moment, during our internal party elections. The EYP, through my own monitoring, was monitoring an entire party, former prime ministers and members of parliament.

For 8 years as an MEP I served the national interests with all my might, and I was “christened” a national danger only during my election campaign to lead the faction? I was probably a danger to your party interests and party plans, ND gentlemen.

And if I was such a great national danger as a candidate, as an ordinary MEP, wasn’t I much greater as the president of the third parliamentary party? If there was a reason that made me dangerous to national security you would have made it a flyer in your friendly media because those are the mindsets you serve. And since, as you say publicly, everything was legal, why the resignations of the EYP commander and the close associate of the Prime Minister, Mr. Dimitriadis?

But there is also the cover-up scandal.

I am saddened to learn that your committee is doing very little to uncover the truth and much more to obscure it. I expected a different attitude and different attitudes, especially towards independent authorities and independent judges.

You achieved a unique parliamentary achievement: Examining the EYP without summoning its political head and all involved persons even those who have resigned. Even if this is “innovation”…

I am here! Despite the leaks of the previous days. I’m not hiding! The prime minister, Mr. Mitsotakis, where is he? Mr. Gerapetritis, Mr. Pierrakakis, as competent ministers? You didn’t even call Grigoris Dimitriadis, who was given the objective political responsibility for the scandal of my monitoring and even resigned. You did not call Mrs. Vlachou, the competent prosecutor of the EYP.

You didn’t call the owners and representatives of the companies that are reported to still be selling surveillance software today, which is what your committee is all about.

Did it not impress you, as it would any citizen, that a company that was bought for a few hundred euros, awarded contracts worth millions to the Greek State with two successive governments?

You may not have respected my own immunity but you have granted a much stronger immunity to the representatives of Krikel and Intellexa.

You didn’t even call the journalist – also a victim – Thanasis Koukakis.

Two people in the country, a journalist and a politician, were simultaneously attacked by the predator and were followed by the EYP. And they are not invited.

The government says “everything is out in the open” but it hides behind the law it introduced and forbids the ADAE to inform the monitored person.

Here is ADAE’s written response to my request to be fully informed about my case. I submit it to you.

I would accept an update at any time – but only legally and in writing. The government is completely unreliable for any verbal conversation.

And I will tell you why: the government representative, as I read, said in his tweet that the government through Mr. Gerapetritis is ready to inform me fully and thoroughly, but I chose not to be informed. We all know Greek well. What does it fully mean, when Mr. Gerapetritis a few days later publicly stated that no one at Maximos knows the slightest thing? Who is he kidding? Would he say to me: “Dear President, I took you to be informed by a third party?” Scripts were changed like shirts.

How does the prime minister admit that surveillance is wrong when he doesn’t know the reasons as he claims? How does he evaluate a surveillance as a mistake when he does not – as he claims – know about the case? Why then did he dismiss his nephew and closest associate since he didn’t know? Does a Greek citizen believe that the prime minister did not know and did what he did? The prime minister and his company are mocking 11 million citizens.

The government says “everything is out in the open” but hides behind secrecy and you have accepted and allowed the invocation of secrecy before the Parliament and the representatives of the Greek people.

In legal science there are legal and illegal actions. There are no “innovative” actions as invoked before you by the new commander of the EYP.

That is why yesterday our Parliamentary Group tabled 3 amendments in order to provide basic guarantees regarding the operation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. We proposed the return of EYP to the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Citizen Protection, the restoration of the role of ADAE so that it has the possibility of notifying the monitored and that detailed information be included in the monitoring order. The government did not even discuss them.

Maximou says “everything is out in the open”, but as the president of ADAE testified, the day I submitted a report to the Independent Authority, the record of my monitoring was ordered and destroyed, meaning the cover-up began.

You accuse me in the public debate that I did not go to the EYP to be informed by ear.

Firstly, no one invited me formally and in writing. The reason is that there is no such process because you removed it. Those who would inform me, declare either that they know nothing, like Mr. Gerapetritis, or that they are also bound to me by confidentiality like the current commander Themistocles Demiris. A secret a la carte. An investigative committee that accepts the confidentiality applies to my trial case but when a former commander of the EYP like Mr. Roubatis comes, it makes it a piece of paper to set up the narrative of offsets.

As a democrat citizen, I do not accept an anemic democracy that is ready to hold political figures, parties hostage, it does not deserve the Greek people with all that they have been through and expected modernization of the state’s functions.

That is why there is this international interest because my case is unique not only because of the predator’s attempt, not only because at the same time I was officially monitored by the secret services of my country but also because all this happened in a very critical political period for the future associations in the country.

My first concern is for our nation to be strong and our country to give perspective to the next generations and not to be a vulnerable country to domestic oligarchy and domestic political patrons. My struggle is national and patriotic.

I remember my attempt to get the arms embargo against Turkey in writing in the European Parliament when some felt that they were not happening, and now they are being played by super-patriots.

I do not pamper any European government in front of the national interest, whether it is socialist or belongs to another political group. Greek patriots are those who, without petty party planning and balance, defend the national interest.

I am ready to answer your questions. Everything I said and everything I will say is public, I will not hide like others behind the “dress” of privacy. Everything I say will be known to the Greek people.”

RES-EMP

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