Special Court: Tension over the deposition of Kalogritsa’s secretary

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Nikos Pappa’s lawyers threatened to file a lawsuit – “Let them file as many lawsuits as they want to be heard and those that have not been heard”, answers Mr. Kalogritsas through his lawyers

Ioanna Mandrou

The testimony of the secretary of the businessman Christos Kalogritsa, who is being tried as a co-accused with the former minister Nikos Pappas in the Special Court, occupied today’s court proceedings as well.

The testimony of Ethalia Diamanti (for forty years the businessman’s secretary), according to which “Envelopes and bags with money left from Mr. Kalogritsa’s office which were money for aid to the party (SYRIZA)” caused intense confrontation between defense attorneys for both sides.

The side of the advocates of the former minister Nikos Pappas stated that they have an order and intend to file a lawsuit against Mrs. Diamantis for the content of yesterday’s testimony.

Andreas Loverdos, one of Mr. Kalogritsa’s two lawyers, answered, to the former minister’s lawyers, he brought to the court a statement from his principal.

The statement reads as follows:Let them file as many lawsuits as they want to hear what has not been heard».

However, the President of the Court, Ioanna Klapa, clarified citing the testimony of the witness, that “what he said was not about Nikos Pappa, it was about SYRIZA. This is what the witness testified. Neither for Pappas, nor for Tsipras.”

A little earlier, during his testimony at the Special Court, the well-known journalist Nikos Tsagris referred to the facts he knew, namely that he was called by the businessman Christos Kalogritsa, in order to “set up” a newspaper that he would publish (like the newspaper Proti) that had been published in the decade of 80 by Christos Kalogritsa, where Nikos Tsagris had been director.

Indeed, within 25 days, as the witness said, the newspaper was designed and his plans were accepted by the Government and Mr. Pappas who was its representative, as the witness said.

However, in a short time Mr. Kalogritsas called Mr. Tsagris and told him that he would “you are forced out, you are not wanted, because they want someone else, they want a party controlled manager”, implying that the then Government wanted to place its own journalists.

As Mr. Tsagris clarified, in the edition of the newspaper “Mr. Pappas would provide political support“, while at another point the witness mentioned that Mr. Pappas had committed “political errors in the management of this case».

Furthermore, the surveyor Anna Vlasopoulou and the economist Dionysios Felemegas, appraisers of a subsidiary company of Piraeus Bank, testified about the value and the possibility of exploiting the area of ​​5,026 acres (of which 3,500 acres were forest land) in Ithaca (the so-called pastures) owned by Mr. Kalogritsa.

The disputed area was proposed in 2016 as a guarantee for the participation of the Kalogritsa family in the competition for television licenses.

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