Damning claims put spotlight on SYRIZA
Audio, letter submitted by businessman to House Committee suggest he was blackmailed by ex-minister
The written testimony of a prominent Greek-Israeli businessman to a parliamentary committee investigating a minister of the former SYRIZA government, sparked a political storm yesterday with acrimonious exchanges between deputies of ruling New Democracy and the main opposition leftist party.
In his letter submitted to the committee probing the handling of the Novartis case by the former SYRIZA administration, Sabby Mionis claimed that he had been harassed by judicial officials for failing to pay a bribe to alternate justice minister
Dimitris Papangelopoulos in 2016. Mionis also attached an audio recording of a telephone conversation with the minister of state of the SYRIZA government, Nikos Pappas, who stated that Papangelopoulos was known for having his “own agenda” and “making a lot of money” from backroom deals, or “outsourcing.”
He also appears to be goading Mionis to encourage an ex-aide to former premier Antonis Samaras to denigrate the profile of Mareva Grabowski, wife of the then leader of the official opposition and current Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
New Democracy said the testimony revealed a “ruthless parastate” while deputy Athanasios Plevris noted that the recording of Pappas clashed with his earlier testimony to the committee.
For his part, Pappas dismissed what he called a “ridiculous distraction” invented by New Democracy after “shocking revelations” were made earlier in the probe about Greece’s former top corruption prosecutor Eleni Raikou, and Samaras.
In a televised statement, Pappas said that the illegal recording of a private conversation had been heavily edited, aimed at falsifying the meaning of the dialogue. He also denounced the “mafia methods” on the part of ND.
He said references in the recordings about “an agenda” and “doing jobs” have nothing to do with Papangelopoulos.
Meanwhile, reports said that when asked during a private conversation to comment about the content of the Pappas-Mionis dialogue, Papangelopoulos said, “Ask Mr Pappas.”If anything happens to me, know that I don’t have suicidal tendencies. I am a victim of a global criminal organization,» he reportedly said.