The Minister of Health, Adonis Georgiadis, spoke of a day of justice, commenting on the decision of the Economic Prosecutor’s Office to lift the status of judicial protection and anonymity of the two protected witnesses in the much-lauded Novartis case.

Adonis Georgiadis emphasized that the major issue is to reveal who put them as “the clarification of this aspect is the only way to never repeat in the future the instrumentalization of the institutions for Political Purposes”

Georgiadis’ statement in detail:

Today’s decision of the Economic Prosecutor’s Office to – finally – remove the protection from the two slanderers, who falsely accused me and my other 9 colleagues about Novartis, is a day of vindication. But the personal element recedes before the interest of the Republic. The main thing here is not to punish them, these will be decided by the Justice in an institutional way. The main thing here is to reveal who planted them, because it is impossible that they came up with such monstrous lies on their own. Clarifying this aspect is the only way to never repeat the instrumentalization of institutions for Political Purposes in the future. This concerns all Greek citizens and not just the 10 of us.

The protection status of “Kelesi” and “Sarafi” is revoked

The judicial protection of the two protected witnesses is stopped, following the suggestion of the assistant prosecutor Eleni Papadopoulos who serves in the Economic Prosecutor’s Office, while their protection from criminal prosecutions is also suspended.

The protected witnesses for whom the status is lifted are the one known as “Aikaterini Kelesi” and the so-called “Maximos Sarafis”.

This decision is expected to cause a series of developments as politicians who had been mentioned by the two protected witnesses, including the former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, the Governor of the Bank of Greece Giannis Stournaras, the Minister of Health Adonis Georgiadis and the former Minister Andreas Loverdos are expected to take legal action against them.