The curious facts of the Papantoniou trial: The few witnesses and the “omission” of the Prosecutor’s Office to summon the State – 2024-03-15 18:56:52

A lot of things are happening before the Three-Member Court of Criminal Appeals where the trial is being held regarding the upgrading of six frigates of the Navy, with former PASOK Defense Minister Giannos Papantoniou, his wife Stavroula Kourakou and seven other persons accused.

See also: Trial of Giannos Papantoniou: The crucial witness and the widow of the deceased in a traffic accident

The strange things started before the trial even started. Although it was a case that damaged the Greek State and concerns, among others, a leading minister of former governments and former government officials, the State was never called by the Athens Appeals Prosecutor’s Office to appear in support of the charge.

In fact, representatives of the Legal Council of the State had complained in writing to the leadership of the Supreme Court and the Minister of Justice, Giorgos Floridis, about this omission of the Athens Appeals Prosecutor’s Office, whether intentional or not. Finally, it is unknown how the representatives of the State were informed and are normally present at the trial in support of the charge.

Another curious thing is the “poor” list of witnesses who were summoned, as the representatives of the State had argued before the Court. As they stated in writing, even though the case file was huge. however, only two witnesses were called and they did not add anything special to the court.

They could not find Stavros Theodorakis

One of them was the well-known journalist Stavros Theodorakis. As documentonews.gr had reported, the Court was unable to locate him in order to testify. A former political party leader and journalist who presents a show on a television station and works in the center of Athens.

See also: The Court that is trying Giannos Papantoniou cannot locate Stavros Theodorakis

The truth is that in the case of Theodorakis, the Athens Appeals Prosecutor’s Office sent a summons in order to testify in this particular trial. However, the service was made to an address that is probably not related to Mr. Theodorakis, with the result that he was not informed and is not present at the Court.

Finally, Stavros Theodorakis was found and yesterday, March 12, he testified before the Court.

The request to call witnesses

The representatives of the State had also submitted at a previous meeting a request to call specific witnesses.

See also: Papantoniou’s trial: Request to call as a witness the Honorable A/GEN Antoniadis – Why had he disagreed with Giannos

This is the Admiral, Antonis Antoniadis who during the critical period during Papantoniou’s ministry, when the question of the modernization of the S-type frigates arose, had expressed his opposition, both in his public speech at the Naval Cadet School and in a three-page non-paper he had sent to Giannos Papantoniou. Also, the request referred to the summons of two Navy officers who drew up on behalf of the investigative authorities investigating the case two reports on the movements of the bank accounts of the persons involved.

The prosecutor of the seat, Alexandros Spiliotis, who had expressed his disagreement with the summoning of the specific witnesses, argued that the conclusions they drew up are in the “readable documents”.

However, yesterday March 12, the Court partially accepted the request of the representatives of the State. In other words, he rejected the summons of the two PN officers, however, he approved the request for the summons of Mr. Antoniadis as a witness.

See also: Papantoniou’s trial: The special experts and the A/G who had disagreed with Giannos

The list of readable documents

Another curious aspect of the case has to do with the list of readable documents compiled by the Prosecutor’s Office. The State’s side argued that there is no such list in the file before the Court. Which they said is impermissible in such a case as the list is the “road map” of the documents in the case. The president of the Court replied that there is such a list and that the secretary of the headquarters found it, with the State representatives replying that it is small.

The trial continues on March 20th, and let’s hope that the strange, if not euphemistic, things don’t continue. All this at a time when the institution of Justice has been irreparably damaged after the resolution of the European Parliament on the operation of the rule of law in our country.