A majority of top jurists in the country on Thursday renewed the term of the head of the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office, by a vote of eight to three, with those voting in favor including the president of the Supreme Court and the high court’s top prosecutor.
The issue of renewing Eleni Touloupaki’s term comes amid a firestorm of political controversy in the country over her ongoing and months-long investigation into still unproven allegations of kickbacks and price-fixing by Novartis’ subsidiary in Greece.
According to media reports, the majority of top justices expressed a view that the explosive Novartis case must not be delayed with a possible replacement of Touloupaki, given the enormous political costs that it entails and the fact that some of Greece’s most prominent politicians are involved. A minority of justices called for a renewal of only one year, although a majority approved the usual two-year renewal.
Touloupaki answered questions for roughly two hours, fielding criticism over the depositions of anonymous witnesses in “doses”. Specifically, the unknown individuals in many cases testified that they could not remember certain incidents, dates and particulars, but then returned months later to provide details.
The voluminous case file has included allegations, made by at least four anonymous witnesses providing on-again, off-again testimony over the past two years, against 10 former office-holders: prime ministers, finance ministers and health ministers who held office before 2015.
Most of those mentioned by anonymous witnesses are considered as prominent rivals of the current SYRIZA government. One, well-known jurist Panayiotis Pikrammenos, served as a caretaker prime minister for a few days.
The allegations mostly fizzled out this week, as the probe against four of the 10 was shelved. Reports state that the shelving of the investigation against another four – including current EU Commission Dimitris Avramopoulos and BoG Gov. Yannis Stournaras – will come this month as well, while speculation is rampant on whether Touloupaki will request the lifting of Parliament immunity against former minister Adonis Georgiadis, one of the most high-profile critics of the current poll-trailing Tsipras government.
Only an official request for the lifting of immunity against former minister Andreas Loverdos was conveyed to Parliament, so he can testify before prosecutors due to “indications” of wrongdoing. The latter is the only actionable result at present from several years of investigation into office-holders’ actions.
Conversely, as opposed to other countries where a similar Novartis-linked investigation has taken place, nary a finding has emerged on possible kickbacks to physicians and hospital administrators in the country.
