Under Greek law, if you The State fail to nobble someone at the first attempt, you can appeal for another go. Funny old way of working, but anyway – as you can imagine with the Greek "elite" – once a few euros have been exchanged between the right and left hands, such appeals are rarely turned down.
Journalist Kostas Vaxevanis
So it is that 48 hours ago journalist Kostas Vaxevanis was told he is to stand trial again because he released details of the notorious Lagarde-List naming of 2,059 Greeks with bank accounts at the Geneva branch of HSBC.
The Prosecution considers as “legally erroneous” the acquittal judgment made by the Court trying Vaxevanis the first time time around. But interesting from the British standpoint is that sources from the prosecutor’s office said the appeal ‘comes after complaints by citizens and lawyers.’ This is probably the same sort of pressure that forced Lord McAlpine (entirely against his will) to extract £185,000 from the BBC, and not give it to Children In Need. The Greek "complaints" are not explained, and so Kostas – a modern-day Mr K from The Trial by Franz Kafka – will go through the ordeal again. Clearly the international outrage at his original arrest has now been overtaken by domestic Greek complaints.
Said Vaxevanis at his trial, “Greek people have known for two years now that there is a list of people who are rich, rightly or wrongly, and they are untouchable. At the same time, the [Greek people] are on the other side, they are suffering cuts”. The trial came only days after he was arrested, while tax evaders won’t face prosecution for up to a decade …. and probably never. This chimes in an odd sort of way with the rapid reimbursement of a privileged English gent, and the continuing poverty of those who were abused by person or persons unknown in the UK Care Homes scandal.
Respected newspaper Kathimerini described the Vaxevanis farce as an "embarrassing double jeopardy re-trial of an investigative journalist who revealed the names of Greeks with secret Swiss bank accounts". Mr Vaxevanis is lucky he didn’t surprise Antonis Samaras with the list while interviewing him on a TV sofa, as by now he would almost certainly be a national pariah. As it is, he seems to be a national hero: Philip Schofield, eat your heart out.
Sadly, the struggles of Samaras are becoming very serious indeed. He plans to repeal laws granting citizenship to second-generation immigrants who were born in Greece, speak Greek, and go to Greek school. This is of course a sop to Greece’s perniciously influential and systemically woven-in Golden Dawn far-tight party. As is the decision by prosecutors, taking their direction from the far-right wing party, to put on trial for blasphemy the organisers, producer, cast and crew of American playwright Terrence McNally’s Corpus Christi, which portrays Jesus Christ and his disciples as gay and living in Texas.
The U.S. Embassy said it “confirmed reports of U.S. African-American citizens detained by police authorities conducting sweeps for illegal immigrants in Athens.” On Friday Embassy dwellers were warned by the US State Department to proceed with care, and avoid confrontations with extermists beating up immigrants. Perhaps Obama code-named this order Operation Samaritan. This too chimes with the US military order of 2005 in London, ordering its soldiers to GTF out of the City once Islamist bombs started going off there. America has always been a generous ally, in very much the same way as Brussels-am-Berlin is a beneficent governing body in the eurozone: for both the eurocrats and the White House seem at ease watching a european State collapse into venal fascist confusion and civil war. (TheSlog)
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