Greek Citizens Side With Prosecutors Against Papandreou & Papakonstantinou

The gates of hell have indeed opened and have totally taken the PASOK party by storm. In such a climate, the mere suggestion that George Papandreou might face investigation on charges that he committed fraud drew strong criticism from PASOK spokesman Panos Beglitis over the weekend who questioned the prosecutor’s handling of the case. Beglitis in an effort to obviously downplay the seriousness of the issue, used known PASOK tactics of mud-slinging, and accused the two prosecutors of “dangerous oversight” and of being part of a “well-organized intervention in political and economic life, which puts national interests in danger, ” while he called on the Supreme Court to “do its duty.” His statements came under attack by most of the blog sphere and Beglitis was charged of trying to "influence" the Greek justice system.Meanwhile a shocking investigative report on Kontra Channel's "Makeleio 2" on Saturday night featured the statements yet another PASOK cadre, this time it was Minister of Justice Miltiades Papaioannou who instead of announcing measures on how his ministry will support and protect these two prosecutors, is instead looking into how to strip the Greek prosecutors of their positions in what the report claims is in the framework of not allowing them to probe into the case further. It was also revealed in the same report that the two Greek prosecutors were "approached" by a corrupt journalist who left it to be understood that they should allow the case to be placed on the back burner.

It should be reminded that on Friday prosecutor Grigoris Peponis delivered the results of his initial probe into the alleged wrongdoing to the Supreme Court. The results claim that Greece’s statistics service inflated the country’s public deficit figure to justify tougher austerity measures and the prosecutors probing the case recommended that Parliament should now investigate the case as well as look into whether former Prime Minister George Papandreou, members of his government and former Finance Minister Georgos Papakostantinou have committed any offenses.

The probe was launched following allegations made last September by Zoe Georganta, a former employee of the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT). Shortly after she was dismissed from the service, Georganta claimed that 2009 deficit data had been artificially inflated from around 12-13 percent to 15.4 percent of gross domestic product. The statistician claimed that European officials wanted Greece to show a greater deficit than Ireland in order to trigger a bailout and tough fiscal measures. Georganta’s allegations were later supported by Nikos Logothetis, the former vice president of ELSTAT. Logothetis denied charges that he hacked into the e-mail account of Andreas Georgiou, who was appointed head of the overhauled and more independent ELSTAT in 2010. Peponis invited Georgiou to give evidence but not suprisingly the Greek prosecutor never took a deposition from him. (Click here to read related story)

The case is now in the hands of Supreme Court prosecutor Nikos Pantelis, who was appointed to examine the case file and decide whether it should be sent to Parliament. If it does, then a parliamentary investigative commission will open with the signature of 30 only parlimentarians.

The Greek blog sphere was set ablaze with this story on Friday and most of the stories since then have focused on this case. The mainstream media, on the other has totally down played the seriousness of this story for obvious reasons. What our "influential" government does not realize is that the Greek blog sphere is made up from common citizens, not puppet journalists and they are not
planning to put the case on the back burner but rather will continue to support these two BRAVE and very HONORABLE prosecutors who have the courage to actually stand up against this corrupt government. Eimaste mazi sas!



Of particular interest is what is said after 15 minutes into the video.

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