Main opposition New Democracy (ND) party on Monday charged that munitions produced by a plant run by a shadowy Athens-based businessman, at the center of an abandoned defense contract involving Saudi Arabia, wound up with the ISIS terrorists.
A ND spokeswoman said Vassilis Papadopoulos is listed in an EU monitoring system for possible weapons smuggling, and specifically as a manufacturer of munitions detected in the former ISIS stronghold of Raqqa.
Maria Spyraki charged that ammunition found in the devastated Syrian city was manufactured in a northern Greece plant, near the town of Axioupolis in Kilkis prefecture, one owned by Papadopoulos. The EU document mentioning Papadopoulos was dated July 2014, she claimed.
Papadopoulos was at the center of the opposition’s criticism of an ill-fated deal to sell Saudi Arabia 66 million euros of surplus munitions, and possibly ordnance for fighter planes. ND and other parties blamed embattled Defense Minister Panos Kammenos for attempting to use a middleman or broker in a weapons contract with another country, something illegal under Greek law since 2011.
