Novartis: Georgiadis on documentonews.gr for protected witnesses – “I withdraw the lawsuit and file a lawsuit” –

For the removal of his public interest witness protection status Novartis scandal and the Minister of Health Adonis Georgiadis spoke to documentonews.gr about his next moves.

Mr. Georgiadis acknowledges that the revelations Documento then made were “scoop” and were well published, while as is natural from his side, he considers that the removal of the protection of the two public interest witnesses does not harm the essence of the institution and insists on the flimsy government narrative of the alleged conspiracy, stressing that “now the story begins to find out who put them”.

The entire statement of Adonis Georgiadis on documentonews.gr, as well as our response to the part of Adonis Georgiadis’ statement about the source of Documento’s information:

“Since yesterday, I have been following with interest the objections of the opposition that the decision of the Economic Prosecutor’s Office to lift the protection status of the two remaining public interest witnesses in the Novartis case affects the essence of the institution and that it will discourage any subsequent interested parties from following the same path in the future . Since I have the opportunity to speak at Documento, I ask the following question: what hurts the essence of the institution more? Yesterday’s decision of the Economic Prosecutor’s Office or for example the fact that when the Corruption Prosecutor Mrs. Touloupakis started this story she did not take care to ensure the confidentiality of the process? Witness statements were leaked to Documento before they reached Parliament and the names of public interest witnesses were leaked to the public within 24 hours and I make it clear that I do not blame Documento newspaper. The newspaper did its job. After finding them it was a journalistic success and she published them well, but for the essence of the research it was a loss. Because the confidentiality of the process was not ensured, as provided by law. As it was not ensured that the names, while they were supposed to be a sealed secret, in 24 hours then they were published in all the media of the country and we experienced the tragedy of the public interest witnesses making statements on the channels and denying that they are the public interest witnesses and now to prove that their rebuttal was as much a lie as their original statements.

This case went completely wrong from the beginning, in my opinion, with significant responsibilities of the corruption prosecutor, mainly because she gave this character of public interest witness to completely unreliable persons. If anything finally really hit the institution it is exactly that. For one to receive this protection which is a great privilege on the part of the State, but because it is a great privilege which deprives the accused of his right to a fair and equal trial, it must be given very sparingly by the prosecutors and only where witnesses have to adduce hard evidence that will definitely lead to a conviction.

In this case, not only did the evidence not lead to a conviction, but it was not even enough to prosecute commonly…waterloo. Now the story begins to find out who put them. On Tuesday, my lawyer Michalis Dimitrakopoulos withdraws the lawsuit against the two and we file the lawsuit as well».

H Documento’s answer in the part of Adonis Georgiadis statement about the sources of our journalistic revelations on the Novartis scandal.

As Adonis Georgiadis is well aware, because Documento’s publisher, Kostas Vaxevanis, has made it public, the newspaper’s information came from various sources, not prosecutorial sources, and in fact the key source of the revelations was the former protected witness and adviser of Mr. Georgiadis, Nikos Maniadakis.

Kostas Vaxevanis handed over all the evidence, such as the messages and the recorded conversations, where Nikos Maniadakis stated that he was being blackmailed by Giannis Stournaras.

And this is what Kostas Vaxevanis did when Nikos Maniadakis, with his testimony, led to the criminal prosecution of the publisher of Docuemento with false accusations.

In order to support the truth, Kostas Vaxevanis broke journalistic secrecy and submitted all the evidence to the interrogation, which of course, as it turned out, did not come from sources from the area of ​​Justice.

After the submission of the evidence, Kostas Vaxevanis was solemnly acquitted by the will of the Supreme Judicial Council of the Special Court, which fully accepted their truth.