Papandreou Offended For Being Included In Lagarde Scandal Probe

George Papandreou (junior) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Poor chap. Former prime minister George Papandreou is very upset for being "targetted" as he says who demand that he too be included in a parliamentary inquiry for involvement in the 'Lagarde list' scandal. In a statement issued earlier this week, Papandreou said that "whatever they may do, I will be here. I will always be standing up to demagogy, populism and violence that divide the Greek people ... I will never stop fighting for my principles and values, Democracy and social justice to the public benefit."

The move to investigate Papandreou came after a move by the Independent Greek party and now has the backing of the Golden Dawn party. The move intends to probe the responsibilities of good old George and interim premier Lucas Papademos in the investigation of the scandalous "Lagarde List" which is a list of 2,065 Greeks with $1.95 billion in secret accounts in a Swiss bank -suspected of being tax evaders-.

Interestingly, two major Greek newspapers in December reported that the name of Margarita Papandreou, George Papandreou's mother is also on the notorious "Lagarde" list, with deposits of well over 500 million Euros!

According to the article in one paper, 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.

According to Stassinopoulos, the director of SDOE's Operational Planning Nick Lekkas replied saying that he had 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.  (Read more about that story by clicking here)

Zoom to the present - On Thursday and knowing that her son is being targeted in the investigation, as he claims- Margarita Papandreou asked financial prosecutors Grigoris Peponis and Spyros Mouzakitis for copies of the depositions of officials of the Financial Crimes Squad (SDOE) who made the allegations. Since the alleged deposition in early December, it has emerged that the account is held by a mutual fund. Papandreou said she wanted copies of the depositions to protect herself from defamation.