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Papaconstantinou Hit With Breach Of Trust

papaconstantinou_300_3112Former Greek finance minister George Papaconstantinou, already being investigated by a parliamentary committee because the names of three of his relatives were removed from a list of 2,062 Greeks with $1.95 billion in secret Swiss bank accounts, now will face a more serious charge of breach of trust.
Members of Parliament voted to add the additional count for his handling of the so-called Lagarde List, named for former French finance minister Christine Lagarde, now head one of Greece’s international lenders, the International Monetary Fund (IMF.)
She said she gave him the list which came off a larger list on a CD stolen from the Geneva bran h of HSBC bank by a worker there. He said it disappeared and it’s never been checked for tax cheats, including his successor, Evangelos Venizelos, now head of the fast-fading PASOK Socialists who are one of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and New Democracy Conservative party leader’s coalition government.
Papaconstantinou blamed the former head of the financial  crimes squad (SDOE) Yiannis Dotis as well as Venizelos, who was exempted by the Parliament from investigation amid charges from critics that Samaras was protecting him.
Of 300 lawmakers, 234 voted in favor of the new charge being leveled against Papaconstantinou, who is accused of failing to record the receipt of a CD from the French Finance Ministry containing the names on the list and of doctoring the list to remove the names of his relatives, which the ex-finance minister denies.
The broadening of the charges means that the parliamentary committee already probing Papaconstantinou is to extend its deadline until June 25. He insisted that he was right not to officially record receipt of the CD as French authorities had not recorded sending it either because it contained information that had been obtained illegally.
Papaconstantinou claimed in a speech in Parliament that some tax evasion court cases in France based on the HSBC data have collapsed because the information was stolen although Lagarde said it had been used successfully by a number of countries to go after tax evaders because the Swiss refuse to co-operate or release any information.
The ex-minister said this is why he gave the information to Diotis to use as a basis for broader tax probes rather than a specific investigation. “The data was stored away in Diotis’s drawer for 16 months,” said Papaconstantinou, explaining why no tax evaders were traced. Samaras hasn’t explained why they still haven’t been.
The ex-minister also called on MPs to explain why, if he allegedly blocked the investigation, there were no results once he was replaced by Venizelos, who he accused of scapegoating him. “Some people believe that the only way to save themselves is destroying their predecessors,” said Papaconstantinou.

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