Nikos Pappas will not apologize to the Special Court

By Ioanna Mandrou

The former minister will not apologize Nikos Pappas who is being tried in the Special Court as informed by his lawyers he will “be forgiven for us”.

The minister on trial for breach of duty for his handling of the television license case has not appeared at the Court since the beginning of the trial, declaring from the outset that his prosecution is political.

The non-appearance of Nikos Pappas, not even for an apology, leaves open the position that his co-accused, the businessman Christos Kalogritsas, will hold, as well as his advocates reserved to inform the court about the decision of their principal.

And while in recent days, the judicial process with a series of revelations, has ignited a political confrontation, everything shows that a new cycle of martyrs will begin, as the side of the former minister, through his advocates Yiannis Mantzouranis, Evangelos Georgakopoulos and Theodoros Mantas, requested that the son of Mr. Kalogritsa Ioannis Vladimiros, who had personally participated in the tender process for the television licenses, be summoned and examined. Court prosecutor Olga Smyrlis accepted the request but the court reserved its decision.

In the event that the request is accepted, the Kalogritsa side, through the lawyers of the businessman Andreas Loverdos and Angelos Karahalios, made it clear that they will follow through on requests to summon new witnesses, saying that they will at least request that three be called.

Otherwise, yesterday’s proceedings were spent with the lengthy testimony of publisher and journalist Costas Vaxevanis, who argued that the minister on trial, Nikos Pappas, “did not give orders to Christos Kalogritsa, nor had he heard from the businessman that he was receiving such orders from Mr. Pappas”.

The journalist confirmed the testimony given by the governor of the Bank of Greece, Giannis Stournaras, who was already examined in Court, according to which, of the 3 million guarantee for the television license tender, the Documento newspaper did not go not a single euro. Regarding this, there was confirmation from the deputy prosecutor of the trial, Dimitris Asprogerakas, who asked the witness about this, if he knows the background to the three million, adding “another thing that you did not get a franc in the Documento”.

However, during the journalist’s testimony there were moments of tension and the conclusion of his long-hour testimony was that Nikos Pappas did not give orders to Christos Kalogritsa, nor – according to the witness – did he commit a breach of duty.

Pappas was not giving orders

Deputy public prosecutor White-tailed Eagle: Did Pappas give Kalogritsa orders for the newspaper, the TV channel, etc.?

Witness. Kalogritsas never told me that he received orders from Pappas, nor did Nikos Pappas give orders. I was never told that he was taking orders or that the minister was giving such orders.

In particular, the witness stated, among other things: “In 2016 I was involved in the publication of the DOCUMENTO newspaper as a director, not as an editor. From the first day of publication of the newspaper, I received fire, character assassination, attempt to incriminate, connection with money that was circulated underground and the reason was that from the first day the newspaper was very disturbing with various publications about the relationship between the prime minister and his wife , Giannis Stournaras etc”.

K. Vaxevanis added that, when he was interested in publishing a newspaper, he also received a proposal from Christos Kalogritsa. “We signed an agreement that in 7 months if everything goes well, I will accept to become a shareholder, I will grant him 50% of the title and we will become partners”, Kostas Vaxevanis testified and continued saying that already from the second page of the newspaper there were disagreements with Chr. Kalogritsa, who was disturbed by the front page publication concerning G. Stournaras. Other headlines followed, directed, as the witness added, against K. Mitsotakis and D. Avramopoulos, which caused a fierce conflict between them. And the witness continued by describing how his collaboration with Christos Kalogritsas was finally interrupted.

“I called him and said ‘what are you doing?’ I told him I was leaving Documento and would ask for compensation. He replied that he will leave DOCUMENTO and we don’t need to go to court and he will leave me the furniture, offices, etc. as compensation and he would collect the advertising. We signed a private agreement.”

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