With the presence of a current and a former minister, the trial of four defendants for illegal recruitment in KEELPNO is being held at the Court of Appeal of Athens.
On the witness stand was former minister and current SYRIZA MP Pavlos Polakis who, referring to the pending case, spoke of “one of the biggest scandals in the field of health”.
Throughout the testimony of Pavlos Polakis, the Minister of Health, Adonis Georgiadis, who had testified in a previous trial, was present.
Tension was caused in the proceedings when the SYRIZA MP asked if the witness Adonis Georgiadis could watch his testimony. “Do you want to run the court as well?”, answered Adonis Georgiadis.
“The so-called sinful KEELPNO, which for many years, since 2000, operated as an off-shore of the Ministry of Health. It functioned as a mechanism for squandering public money”, testified Pavlos Polakis who, as Deputy Minister of Health, brought the case to justice.
“I received a paper ‘see the abominations of Adonis’, at first I didn’t pay attention, after ten days the paper came back to my desk and I told the employees to look at it. This was a piece of paper (he shows it) with a list of 22 names. Most of them are DE, a few doctors and nurses and next to it it said who recommended that they be hired. I then went to Ms. Raikou and testified about Mr. Georgiadis’ carbine rusfetology. I went again in March and again in May, because I could see that nothing was being done,” said Mr. Polakis.
“Adonis Georgiadis used KEELPNO to hire people for his ministerial office, wasting KEELPNO’s state budget,” said Pavlos Polakis to the judges of the Three-Member Criminal Appeals Court, pointing out that the main responsibility for the illegal recruitments lies with his political opponent .
“It’s a carbine case of infidelity. All these 22 were hired by KEELPNO and were then assigned as administrators, in the press office and another to Mr. Georgiadis. He appointed them through this mechanism to get a salary and then assigned them to his office as administrators. There are papers that prove that they never set foot there, in the structures of KEELPNO. Apparently the employees of KEELPNO did not act on their own, but on the order of their political superior. But for him there was a statute of limitations. In our case, there is no legal notice procedure, no notice was ever published, there are falsified decisions for staff recruitment”, said the MP of Chania.
The fight with Georgiadis’ guard
Tones were raised a little while ago again in the KEELPNO trial when Pavlos Polakis refused to answer a question that had been put to him again, with Adonis Georgiadis intervening saying “what process is this?”.
His phrase provoked the reaction of Pavlos Polakis’ lawyer, Yiannis Apatsidis, who was in the audience and came into a confrontation with a man from the minister’s guard, asking for the protection of the district attorney.
“I’ve never seen this before! Witness picking up the phone while testifying? I have a lot of work too. Please consider that I also have work to do! As if the rest of us don’t have jobs! Everything has limits!” protested Adonis Georgiadis.
The trial continues.
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