In a panic to justify why he kept a memory stick at his office in regards to the Lagarde List, PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos opened a can of worms on Thursday night that is not only HUGE but also dangerous for Greece's national security. The subject might of escaped the mainstream media, or maybe they ignored it altogether, but on Friday it dominated the Greek blog sphere.
"SYRIZA says that I (purposely) concealed the (Lagarde) list. From whom? From SDOE who had it (or the Greek Financial Crimes Squad)? What list? The informal digital copy?" said Venizelos and then came the WHOPPER "as if I don't have digital copies of Greece's defense plans from my run at the Ministry of Defence? Certainly I do. How do you think I went to NATO? Don't I have a copy of the defensive doctrine suggested in KYSEA (Greek Armed Forces)? Don't I take confidential information from the Foreign Ministry? So why would an informal digital copy of a (bank) list be among all the above which is being investigated by the Financial Crime?"
This INCREDIBLE and SHOCKING confession might have immediately been exploited by the leader of the SYRIZA party Alexis Tsipras, in order to impress the cameras -and hence his voters-, but in all reality it threatens national security and is a direct infringement of basic national safety standards. As viewed in the video above, Venizelos' statements sparked outrage from many parliamentarians, while SYRIZA is now calling for the intervention of the Prosecution.
Let us repeat, Venizelos confessed that he holds copies of Greece's defense map at his home which he of course said was "borrowed". How the hell do you "borrow" classified national defense plans and keep them at your home?
This is categorically prohibited by law. No one is allowed to remove classified documents from their natural space, especially Greece's defence map! And when we talk about documents relating to the defense plans of the country, we suspect -since he mentioned NATO- that these are not simple documents that are classified as being "secret" or "top secret", but documents that have a stricter classification codes such as those of NATO.
(!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Doesn't he realize that it is against the law to remove such documents out of the Ministry of Defense? Doesn't he know that there is a specific series of security checks on people who have access to such confidential information so that it cannot be leaked?
Who does this man think he is?
He is totally incompetent and he totally ridiculed himself!
"He keeps copies of critical issues for the operation of the country's defense plans in his office" asked Tsipras. What "really bothers me is not the fact that he admitted that he has copies of (Greece's) defense map but when he said this members of the Parliament (or his party) clapped ... ".
Although we are very critical of SYRIZA, we tend to agree with Tsipras' point. The members of his party clapped when he said this? Have they all gone mad? This was a shocking confession and it kind of makes us wonder, is everyone in his party, and when we say everyone... we mean everyone, that incompetent? Hate to break it to them, but we are afraid that it will have grave repercussions on the PASOK leader.
By admitting that he holds such documents in his possession, Venizelos has directly violated a series of military intelligence and correspondence regulations. Classified documents must remain at the department and cannot leave the Greek Pentagon. Appointed Ministers are permitted to have access to them, but once their term as head of the Ministry is over they must be returned to the relevant departments. Besides, who in their right mind would leave a building -especially the Greek Pentagon- with such documents to begin with and then publicly confess to it as if it was nothing!
Realizing the magnitude of what was said, the PASOK party on Friday attempted to downplay Venizelos' statements, by issuing a statement claiming that Venizelos was being "humorous". At the same time the party suggested that the SYRIZA take a break before they begin attacking the socialists -and Venizelos- again.
"The Ministry of Defence should not be concerned. All the correspondence from the General Staff (and other authorities) with the political leadership is being conducted according to specified regulations."
If this was a nation that respected its citizens, its army and most importantly its reputation, then a prosecutor would intervene right away after his statement to see if this was joke or not.
Our opinion?
Simple... Venizelos is incompetent. He must step down from his post immediately if he still has some decency, and allow someone else to take over in his party, because quite frankly he is a hazard for national security and is doing more harm than good to his party. George Papandreou was indeed worse, but Venizelos is definitely just as loathing. Aside from violating two articles in the Greek constitution (Articles 146 and 147 of the Penal Code - on issues of classified information), it is expected that authorities will also launch a massive investigation to see whether or not foreign interests were able to gain access to this information and on top of this, Greece's defence map must change right away with the hope that this time, all information will remain at its natural space.
We are not legal experts here at HellasFrappe, and do not know what is going to follow, but coming back the next day and saying that you were being humorous is really not going to cut it. The reactions to this are beyond HUGE and have caused a wave of negative reactions on the social networks and the blog sphere. What bothers us the most from this shocking confession is that he basically went by the philosophy -why shouldn't I take them-.
Totally incredible!
Stay tuned frappers...
References
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