Government sources gave a harsh response to the accusations launched by the president of SYRIZA, Stefanos Kasselakis, speaking to Mega.

“One only has to watch another interview of Mr. Kasselakis to find that his arrogance and the aggressive way in which the president of SYRIZA speaks, when he is pressed to give substantial answers, are also increasing” the government sources commented on Mr. Kasselakis’ interview.

“However, every time he refers to the economy and where he will find the money to implement the 40 billion program he has announcedyes, economists should get away from televisions” were commenting.

Finally, it was added, regarding his new distortions surrounding today’s interview of the Prime Minister about the “editing machine” and “wooden” in Tempi, we quote today’s answers of the Government Spokesperson from the briefing of the political editors:

“Journalist: Because the Prime Minister mentioned in his interview in the morning, he left it open that the train carried xylene in the Tempe tragedy and said that he does not know how the so-called “edited conversations” were leaked. I would like a comment on this.

P. Marinakis: He didn’t leave the possibility open. He said he considers all of these to be unproven and conspiracy theories. But, whatever it is, as he rightly pointed out, all this will be decided by the Court. No one else will decide them, apart from Justice. Everyone can have their opinion, but decisions on all individual issues and on a case as a whole are made by Justice. And this is what I think our country needs, politicians who respect the separation of powers and do not prejudge the decisions of the Court. Now, on the matter of the infamous editor, he repeated what we have said many times, maybe hundreds of times, that it’s one thing if there was a bad leak, another thing if one of the 15 conversations came out altered, as it appeared from the next days, another thing if there was falsification of data with the aim of misleading public opinion. The Prime Minister said again – we have all said it too many times – that there could be no such thing. No, there simply wasn’t. Because the conversations all turned out to be correct, that is, except for one that had not come out correct in the following days, even from the Public Television and from all the sites and from the sites that republished the first conversation or published the first conversation and on the same day had the stationmaster’s speech became known. So, there could be no attempt to manipulate public opinion on the issue of human error, which seems to be something we all agree on, apart from the other aspects. The Opposition is deliberately taking the debate elsewhere. The issue, the issue here, is not whether there was an altered conversation on the first day. Apparently the next day, the same conversation turned out not to be the one that had appeared on the first day, by all Media. In other words, no one went to hide anything. At issue is whether someone had reason or intent to mislead the public about human error. That had been resolved. This issue is a closed issue. No one could even do that, because human error was a given. These are the facts and I think they have now been sufficiently explained to everyone.

Journalist: We heard from the Prime Minister today about Tempi and he referred to conspiracy theories, about the planting, as he said, of explosives, xylene and attributes them to Mr. Kasselakis and Mr. Velopoulos. But most of them come from both expert reports and relatives’ statements. Why does the Prime Minister not give an answer for all this? That is, when was he informed and by whom about the excavating, as stated by the investigator and the platoon, which is mentioned. When did he himself hear and from whom the sounds that document human error, in the early hours. And finally, we would like an answer – I insist on the colleague’s question – as to whether Mr. Mitsotakis is still confident about the content of the disputed train…

P. Marinakis: The Prime Minister talked about conspiracy theories. He talked about theories, which have no proof, first. Secondly, he said – I’ll say it again – that every individual aspect is investigated by the Judiciary and whatever one’s opinion, the decision on each individual aspect and the overall decision is made by the competent judges and prosecutors. There is an investigator, there is a prosecutor and they look at every aspect of the case and at an upgraded, even level, level of appeals. Thirdly, the Prime Minister has answered all this in interviews in the Greek Parliament. He constantly answers and so he has a duty to do. From there, everyone evaluates this answer. Beyond that – the Prime Minister also said today – the fact that some try to use the pain of relatives, to use human pain as a tool to make politics, does not mean that we are turning against relatives. They have a right to rage and indignation and to make accusations and to make any request, as parties to a proceeding. Alas if we were to question this right. However, there are political forces that try to make politics on this tragedy, on this tragic accident. Don’t kid us now. That’s where the toxicity lies. In that there are political forces that go to campaign with banners, with slogans, with events, over a human tragedy. What should we do now; It’s not the first time it’s happened. We have never done it, nor are we going to do it, but it is a given. Relatives, their demands, their anger are one thing, and the political forces are another. Political forces have decided to instrumentalize human suffering. This is a fact. Whatever they say, it has been fully captured.”