Two major Greek newspapers on Sunday, or specifically the "Proto Thema" and "To Vima" newspapers, reported that the name of Margarita Papandreou, former Prime Minister George Papandreou mother and wife of former Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou, is on the notorious list "Lagarde", with deposits of well over 500 million Euros!
According to the reports, Margarita Papandreou's name is included in the "Lagarde List" case controversy which was earlier last week submitted to the Greek Parliament for investigation by financial prosecutors Mr. Peponis and Mr. Mouzakidis.
Some MPs who apparently began looking through the documents, noticed that they indicated that there was a deposit of over 500 million drachmas, or about 1.5 million.
Interestingly a separate report on defencenet said that the colossal beneficiary account does exist, but that it is rather 550 million U.S. dollars (something for which defencenet has been emphasizing on for a while, claiming that behind this money lies a HUGE matter).
(Editor - Guess this will be cleared up in the next few days)
On her part, and after the publication of this MEGA news, Margarita Papandreou issued a press release characterizing the reports as false attacks that are aimed against the Papandreou family. "We will continue to resist with great faith in our principles, our values of democracy," said Ms Papandreou.
Her son George Papandreou, on the other, described the news as "politically motivated attacks" which were made against him, and contain no evidence.
According to the article in ProtoThema, on October 2, 2012 the head of Greece's Financial Crime Squad (SDOE) Stelios Stasinopoulosse held a meeting with all the service managers of his department and asked if they knew anything about the Lagarde List, -the fate of the list of which until then was considered "missing"-. It was at this particular meeting that the name of Mrs M.Papandreou was first mentioned from the mouths of two Directors of Financial Crime.
Specifically, Mr. Stassinopoulos noted that the director of SDOE's Operational Planning Mr. Nick Lekkas replied that he has not seen the list, but that he had heard that the woman with the 500 million deposit was linked to the political elite and then uttered the name of Margarita Papandreou. The same was also alleged by Mr. Ev. Karamanos, who is SDOE's Director of Special Affairs.
Noteworthy said the report, is that the meeting in question was held on 02/10/2012 which coincides with the visit by PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos' to the Maximos Mansion with the infamous USB stick -which was containing a copy of the controversial list. People close to Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras immediately forwarded the evidence to Mr. Stassinopoulos (without even opening the folder) as referred in testimony to the Committee on Institutions and Transparency, but there was never any mention about the dialogue he had held with his colleagues.
The newspaper also notes that if this MEGA bomb story is correct, then it is obvious that there are TWO SEPARATE Lagarde lists:
- The original which was received by former Finance Minister George Papakonstantinou by French authorities - in digital disk form
- And a copy that obviously has been tampered with which was presented in a USB stick from Venizelos's office.
This MEGA BOMB report has also raised some other questions which were outlined in Sigma:
- Does Margarita Papandreou hold a bank account at HSBC in Switzerland? Does this money belong to her, or does it belong to an Israeli based businessman? (Editor - ?????????)
- Was this deposit -made by the name on the account- made before or after 2002?
The Greek justice system, and relevant lawmakers are now waiting for another copy of the list from the French authorities, and the comparison of that list with the one that actually was given by Venizelos will determine this case further.
Sources
Sources
- http://www.ert.gr/politiki/item/26693-Giwrgos-kai-Margarita-Papandreoy-gia-ta-dhmosieymata-ston-Typo
- http://www.madata.gr/epikairotita/politics/239780.html
- http://www.sigmalive.com/news/greece/19274
- http://www.newsit.gr/default.php?pname=Article&art_id=177683&catid=3
- http://www.gazzetta.gr/politiki/article/348589-bomba-me-ti-margarita-papandreoy
- http://www.newsbeast.gr/financial/arthro/452652/eblekoun-ti-margarita-papandreou-sti-lista-lagard/
- http://www.defencenet.gr/defence/item/%CE%B7-%CE%BC%CE%B1%CF%81%CE%B3