A up-until-recently “protected” witness in an ongoing investigation into past practices by Novartis’ Greek subsidiary this week charged that he was pressured to name politicians as recipients of bribes, the basis of a controversial indictment that generated a political firestorm in the country last year.
Former health ministry adviser Nikos Maniadakis made the allegation on Skai television’s primetime newscast on Wednesday, days after he was prevented from travelling to Madrid, and after prosecutors said evidence arose over his involvement in the same Novartis case. Moreover, on Thursday, less than 24 hours later, his former residence and a home where he is being temporarily hosted were searched by police.
The political opposition in the country has directly charged that the leftist-rightist Tsipras government manufactured and sustains a corruption case against a handful of prominent political rivals in order to shore up its foundering voter approval ratings heading into three elections in 2019 – an unprecedented allegation even for Greece’s rough political landscape. Maniadakis and two other “protected” witnesses, essentially informants not named by an anti-corruption prosecutor in charge of the case, have claimed that previous prime ministers, including a caretaker premier for less than a month, a finance minister and successive health ministers were “on the take” from Novartis Hellas prior to 2015.
The names cited by the unnamed witnesses, sans Maniadakis now, include ex-PM Antonis Samaras, current BoG Gov. Yannis Stournaras, current EU Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos and past health ministers, such as Andreas Loverdos and Adonis Georgiadis. Missing are Panagiotis Kouroumplis and Mariliza Xenoyanakopoulou, the former having been elected with SYRIZA since 2015 and then serving as a minister in the current government, and the latter only recently tapped to assume a Cabinet post as an out-of-Parliament appointment.
“I am a defendant because another witness loosely said I took 120,000 euros. I don’t know anyone who has engaged in an illegal action; I am a university professor, a technocrat who tried to help our country. Judicial officials persistently asked me questions about Mr. Samaras, Georgiadis and Stournaras, if I have knowledge over (illegal) payments. I denied this and I deny it, no one should be pressured to confess (to something that is false),” he said during the live newscast.
Moreover, he said judicial officials pressured him to say “what he did or did not do with various political personalities”.
