Former Greek Defense Minister Remains Jailed, Lawyers Say Human Rights Violated

ATHENS – A Greek prosecutor decided on Monday to jail a former defense minister pending trial on money laundering charges in a high-profile case against a politician facing decades of corruption scandals.
Charged with stealing millions of dollars from arms contracts while he was Defense Minister, noted politician Akis Tsochatzopoulos testified before an investigating magistrate for more than eight hours on April 16 as his lawyers raised objections to his arrest and complained that his human rights were being violated. Tsochatzopoulos is being charged in with an extensive money laundering network he is believed to have used to conceal under-the-table payments from defense procurement deals signed when he was minister.
He reportedly had sought more time to prepare his testimony, a request that was rejected by the magistrate. His lawyers said that he didn’t make the deals on contracts alone and that the contracts were signed by all the members of the state Council for Foreign Affairs and Defense (KYSEA) and by former premiers Costas Simitis and George Papandreou.
Three suspects implicated in the money laundering network, including Tsochatzopoulos’ first cousin Nikolaos Zigras, also a former minister, are due to testify on April 17. Also arrested was George Sachpatzides, a businessman with links to the same offshore companies, according to police. Tsochatzopoulos was to be detained at the Athens police force’s headquarters before being transferred to Korydallos Prison.
According to a lengthy report by prosecutors Evgenia Kyvelou and Eleni Siskou, the 73-year-old minister pocketed millions of euros in unreported payments for defense procurements since 1997, with the frequency of illicit transactions peaking between 1999 and 2002. They said the activities were concealed with the help of close associates who ran three offshore companies to hide the money, some of which was used to buy the ex-minister’s array of assets, according to the report. Tsochatzopoulos, who was arrested last week and spent the Easter holidays in a holding cell, is pleading not guilty of all charges. The prosecutor’s lengthy report lists all the transactions he allegedly made including the names of the financial institutions involved.
The charges center around a bribery investigation concerning the purchase of four new German submarines by the Greek navy and followed a two-year probe into property transactions involving offshore companies controlled by Tsochatzopoulos, a founding member of the PASOK Socialist party 38 years ago. The $3.26 billion submarine deal was signed in 2000, and was plagued with problems concerning the submarine’s performance.
In a country where serving politicians have immunity against prosecution for all crimes while in office and none have been arrested for any major crimes, the scenes of Tsochatzopoulos being escorted from his home by plainclothes police transfixed Greeks who have been furious over austerity measures demanded by international lenders in return for rescue loans. Elections for a new leader begin May 6 and critics said his arrest was a campaign gimmick.
He is the first high-profile Greek politician to be arrested under a crackdown on corruption and tax evasion that apprehended nearly 200 civil servants, businesspeople and entertainers. None of them have been prosecuted, despite complaints from the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB) loaning Greece $325 billion to prop up the country’s failed economy that tax cheats owing $72 billion have gone mostly untouched.
Tsochatzopoulos is accused of receiving a $10.45 million bribe from former employees of Ferrostaal, the German industrial group that arranged the submarine purchase. Funds were allegedly deposited in a Swiss bank account and were later transferred to Greece to buy two properties in Athens according to documents prepared for the prosecution, people with knowledge of the case said, according to The Financial Times.
Last year Ferrostaal agreed to pay a $183 million fine in a settlement with a Munich court in a case involving two former employees accused of paying bribes in Greece and Portugal connected with submarine purchases in both countries. The two were given a suspended sentence of two years and a fine. Tsochatzopoulos retired from politics in 2009. He was expelled from PASOK in 2010 over his purchase of a $1.8 million home in “billionaires’ alley” – a street overlooking the ancient Parthenon temple in central Athens – through an offshore company.
He appeared last year before a Parliamentary committee holding a separate inquiry into the submarine purchases, claiming he had become a scapegoat for popular resentment against politicians. The lawmakers voted to set up a committee of senior judges to decide whether Tsochatzopoulos should appear before a special court on charges of corruption and money-laundering, but, typical of cases involving connected politicians, nothing happened until the prosecutors had him arrested.