VIDEO - Extensive report on SKAI channel with Nikos Evangelatos at 21 minutes into the video
The authentic copy of a list of Greeks with sizeable bank accounts at a Swiss branch of HSBC, resent by French authorities following a request made by Greece through official channels, was finally forwarded to Parliament on Friday. The information, dubbed the 'Lagarde list', will be added to other evidence sent to Parliament in the context of an investigation of a possible political involvement to hide serious tax evasion.
Financial prosecutors Grigoris Peponis and Spyros Mouzakitis had earlier delivered the list to their superiors at the Supreme Court so that it might be sent on to Parliament but they were both absent when it arrived, so the list was secured in the office of Supreme Court Prosecutor Ioannis Tentes.
On Friday a meeting at Tentes' office would be held with Supreme Court Deputy Prosecuture Nikos Pantelis, the immediate supervisor of the two financial prosecutors, to discuss the list and its contents. The document is then to be sent to Parliament via the justice ministry.
The existence of the 'Lagarde list' first came to light some months ago when former finance minister Evangelos Venizelos produced a copy of it on a portable flash drive that had been in his possession for roughly a year. The original list had been sent to his predecessor at the finance ministry, George Papakonstantinou, in the form of a CD that has not been found and of which there is no record.
The discovery of the list launched an investigation into whether the names on the list might be guilty of tax evasion and extensive speculation as to why its existence had not been revealed earlier. There was also speculation that the original list sent from France may have been tampered with, prompting Greek authorities to request that a second copy of the list be sent from France and turned over to the two financial prosecutors investigating the case.
There is no information at present on whether a comparison of the first list in the hands of the prosecutors and the second sent from France has yielded any new evidence. The process of comparing the two lists has now been completed and the two prosecutors intend to review all the material in the case file over the next few days in order to determine whether further action must be taken with regard to non-politicians implicated in the case, namely the two former heads of the finance ministry's financial crimes' squad SDOE that have been called to testify as suspects.
Meanwhile, authorities are continuing to investigate the people named in the list to determine whether they can account for the provenance of the funds they have sent abroad.
Three names on the new list sent to Greece by French authorities containing the names of Greek depositors at a branch of HSBC in Geneva are linked to former Finance Minister Giorgos Papakonstantinou, SKAI television reported on Friday. According to their report, the new list contains three additional names to the 200-odd on the original record. These three names are allegedly connected to Papakonstantinou, who had received the original list, and one of the three is said to have deposits at HSBC in Geneva of more than $1.22 million. Sources told SKAI television that no other new names appeared on the new list that is being investigated by financial prosecutors. But again, this is just lots of buzz and nothing has been confirmed by competent authorities.
References
AMNA
SKAI Television
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