Under the proposed indictment, former finance minister, with the George Papandreou government, George Papakonstantinou allegedly removed the names of his first cousin, her husband, and another relative from a list of over 2,000 account holders at the Swiss branches of the British lender HSBC.
The list was provided by French authorities in 2010 from data on 24,000 customers reportedly stolen from the bank.
Greek prosecutors found the three missing names last week after requesting that the French government resend the information. Authorities are using the list of 2,000 Greek account holders to investigate possible tax evasion, and the public has sharply criticized their governments for taking so long to complete such probes as the country struggles to survive its deep financial crisis.
Speaking about the names, Eleni Papaconstantinou-Sikiaridis, the first cousin of Papakonstantinou -whose name was one of three of the latter's relatives that were removed from the so-called Lagarde list- on Wednesday submitted her resignation from the state privatization fund (TAIPED). An established lawyer, Mrs Papaconstantinou-Sikiaridis notes in her resignation letter that the money held at HSBC in Geneva is "the legal wealth of myself and my husband." Her spouse, Symeon Sikiaridis, was the second of three names deleted from the original Lagarde list. The third is Andreas Rossonis, the husband of another cousin of the ex minister, Marina Papaconstantinou. In her letter, Papaconstantinou-Sikiaridis said she was tendering her resignation from TAIPED to so as not to impede the fund's operations.
Voices from within the New Democracy party are already criticizing the move to indict just former finance minister George Papakostantinou, claiming that it strengthens the opinion and/or argument that the government is closing its eyes to the other culprits in this scandal. The case will begin being debated (and then voted on) between January 8-12 (or between several trips that Samaras had already scheduled to conduct), while lawmakers are also looking into initiating proceedings under common law, as in the case Akis Tsohatzopoulos, so as to circumvent the law on the liability of ministers.
The parliamentary debate will not be as simple as some think because there are already a number of MPs in the governing party that also want to investigate the mishandling of the list from Mr. "Untouchable Venizelos" or as we have dubbed him Evangelos the Large.
We here at HellasFrappe personally believe that the government decided to move too quickly with this case and we believe they did this because they did not want to be blown out of proportion by SYRIZA. Television, as we all know guides public opinion, so they wanted to get the upper hand in this case first. In fact some reports are saying that the three leaders apparently agreed that SYRIZA should not reap in the political benefits of this scandal and promote the image of a party that vies for the "cleansing" of Greece's corrupt power system. But as in every case, each leader in the coalition government which agreed to indict Papakostantinou did it in accordance with his own interests.
For instance, Fotis Kouvelis wants to portray "the good guy" because his party came under attack after the June 17 elections for supporting the Memorandums, and let us not forget that some of his deputies have caused a ruckus for their anti-Hellenistic views. That is why he wants to portray the good, but all this from a distance of course.
The only ones smiling at the moment are the conservatives and we expect that they will take full advantage of the whole issue since it is more or less PASOK related. But we cannot say the same about Samaras, because he might come out bruised from this case since he did make a pact with Venizelos by agreeing to only point the finger at Papakostantinou. This might backfire on Samaras who is already heading a very shaky government.
The only person it really benefits is Venizelos. Indeed Evangelos the Large might be feeling like the walls are closing in on him but he was clever enough to (temporarily) remove himself from this case.
But it's not enough. The public outcry over this case is already huge and in some cases it is even toppling other newsworthy subjects such as the harsh austerity measures that are planned to be implemented this year. If you really think about it.. The average underdog and/or blue collar worker, who has been the real victim of this economic crisis, would understandably find it very soothing, if not a "spectacle", to watch Papakostantinou being dragged off to Korydallos prison rather than think about his or her own economic woes. After all Papakostantinou was one of the most loathed politicians in Greece (probably after Papandreou) as well as the orchestrator of the first Memorandum which brought in all these austerity measures in the first place. Also, the general public also wants Venizelos to face up to his responsibilities as well. After all, Venizelos was the orchestrator of the "immunity law", the PSI (where thousands of bond holders lost billions of Euros) as well as slapped the undemocratic property tax on public utility bills and helped to orchestrate the second Memorandum.
If the investigation extends to him, then we are in for a rocky ride because this could almost certainly destabilize the already shaky government of Antonis Samaras. The Greek PM and Kouvelis obviously knew this and that is why they unwillingly gave the president of PASOK what he wanted, by "cutting and sewing" the level of responsibilities in the handling of the case and limiting them only to Mr. Papakonstantinou.
That is why we believe that the issue might backfire on the ruling conservatives.
For now the political agenda will only center around the responsibilities of the former minister of finance, but let's face it, it's only a matter of time before more details are revealed in this case and whether Venizelos likes it or not he will have to finally answer to very troubling questions.
It should also be noted that aside from the investigation of the Lagarde list, and the indictment of Papakonstantinou, the Financial Prosecution is also conducting a probe into the responsibilities of all the Ministers and officials connected with this case as well.
Parallel to this, Deputy Supreme Court Prosecutor Nikos Pantelis has already forwarded the investigative file to Parliament regarding the case, underlining that it be immediately investigated. The file concerns the possible criminal responsibilities in the handling of the case by members of the George Papandreou government. The file which does not mention the names of both Papakostantinou or Venizelos reads as follows: "(The Supreme Court) We are sending the file without an assessment of the case against the Lagarde list, which contains the names of Greek deposits in this bank. Please review the conditions under which the names of Greek depositors indicated on the CD and the way the officials made use of this information at the Greek Finance Ministry. We also urge to also look into possible criminal responsibilities of members of the then government." (Meaning the government of George Papandreou).
So how does the coalition government handle this part of the investigation? Especially the two parts that say "please review the conditions under which the names of Greek depositors indicated on the CD and the way the officials made use of this information at the Greek Finance Ministry" or the part which notes "we also urge to to also look into possible criminal responsibilities of members of the then government." It is obvious that this is out of their league, and not in their hands to "cut up and sew".
So this is why we believe that it is only a matter of time before Venizelos will have to face questioning.
Any way you cut it there are many unanswered questions in this case.
PASOK is obviously getting hot under the collar about the list. This kind of explains why some reports on New Year's day said that the party sent a non paper to members to change their attitude towards the Former Finance Minister. Why such a flip-flop only two days after X-ing him from the party? Are they planning on blaming the former head of the Financial Crimes Squad Mr. Diotis for their mishandling of the list and slap everything on him? It remains to be seen. But with PASOK nothing surprises us.
We here at HellasFrappe are nonetheless convinced that PASOK, or Mr. Venizelos to be more exact, decided to make this little flip-flop because as soon as he started pointing his stubby finger at Papakostaninou for being the only one responsible in the Lagarde scandal, the latter pointed back by reminding us of Venizelos part in the handling of the Type 214 submarine scandal! And from what was reported last week, this is one story that STINKS Venizelos and really needs to be investigated by competent authorities. Papakostantinou obviously knows this, so that is why we don't see him pulling up a sweat and rushing to Greece to clear his name. (He is currently vacationing in the The Netherlands with his family).
Some reports are even claiming that the non-paper that PASOK sent out wants to also politically slap the main opposition SYRIZA party around a bit making them out to look like the bad guys. In fact don't be surprised if PASOK makes it all out to look like some conspiracy story from the side of SYRIZA to discredit Venizelos and drag Papandreou into the issue as well. Certainly we here at HellasFrappe do not like SYRIZA and have more than once disagreed with them on more than one occasion (especially over their foreign policy) but slapping SYRIZA around and making yourself out to look like a victim is really not that kosher Mr Venizelos now is it?.. Let alone convincing. Then again... In the "communications game" PASOK has always had an upper hand, so we wouldn't be surprised if they actually did attempt this.
It is really hypocritical and hysterical to watch PASOK (and especially all the protagonists in this case) pretend to be the guarantors of political stability when we all know what they did and what dirty games they played against the conservative government of Costas Karamanlis in 2009 in order to help George Papandreou to win the elections and all the lies they created in a series of scandals that later proved to be nothing more than hot air.
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