Former top minister Andreas Loverdos, a current and long-serving MP, on Tuesday welcomed the lifting of his Parliamentary immunity so he can testify before an anti-corruption prosecutor investigating allegations of price-fixing in favor of Novartis’ Greek subsidiary.
The allegations against Loverdos, included in a voluminous prosecutor’s file conveyed to Parliament earlier in the day, were the product of testimony by four anonymous witnesses. Parliament’s 300 deputies will now vote on whether to lift his immunity or not.
“Wretchedness, conspiracy and shameless lies,” was the way Loverdos began a press conference, while directly blaming the current ruling party, hard left SYRIZA, as behind what he called a judicial plot against its political rivals.
Allegations of kickbacks, price-fixing and breach of faith against nine out of 10 former prime ministers, finance ministers and health ministers essentially fizzled out on Monday, when it was leaked that the probe against four of the past office-holders was shelved, with the same result expected for the other five this month.
Loverdos was the only one of the 10 for which the anti-corruption prosecutor requested testimony – in a capacity as a suspect in a wrongdoing – to answer more questions related to the allegations and ongoing investigation.
An attorney and law professor, he served as health minister from September 2010 until May 2012, first in George Papandreou’s PASOK government and then in the provisional government headed by Lucas Papademos, a period under scrutiny in the anti-corruption prosecutor’s investigation.
One noteworthy fact is that Loverdos took over from Mariliza Xenogiannakopoulou, a veteran PASOK functionary and minister that abandoned the party in 2012 and now serves as an out-of-Parliament minister in the current Tsipras government.
Although Xenogiannakopoulou served as a health minister during the period for which the probe is aimed, she was not mentioned by any of the four anonymous witnesses.
“I have no money, that’s why they (prosecutors and magistrates) couldn’t find even a euro, and even though they searched me, my underage children, my relatives and my associates. At the same time they did not publicize these results,” he said, adding:
“In Parliament and in my lawsuits against the hooded perjurers (anonymous witnesses) I demolished all of the slanderous charges made by these miserable criminals. From the (latest) case file sent to Parliament (on Tuesday) what emerges is that the supplementary depositions were given until April 4, a week ago,” he said, promising legal action against the “pseudo witnesses”, as he said, as well as the orchestrators of the action against him.
