LETTER FROM ATHENS
Demonstration against the economic austerity measures imposed on the population in Athens, Greece, in April 2013. LOUISA GOULIAMAKI / AFP
In Greece, the acquittal of former officials of the German company Siemens, who were charged in connection with one of the biggest corruption cases, caused a sensation. The case dates back to the late 1990s, during the modernization of the telephone network. Then excessive contracts are signed between Siemens and the state power company, bribes are distributed to officials of the German company, but also to Greek politicians. According to officials from the Greek Siemens subsidiary, 130 million marks were paid. In 2011, in the midst of the economic crisis, a parliamentary commission of inquiry estimated that this scandal had cost the country around 2 billion euros.
On Monday, September 26, after 16 years of trials and numerous postponements, the Athens Court of Appeal acquitted 20 people who had been sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2019 on corruption charges. The former boss of the Greek Siemens subsidiary Michalis Christophorakos, who fled to Germany at the beginning of the investigation, was not sentenced either. The reason ? The facts are prescribed.
All the media immediately shouted foul. The left-leaning weekly Documento called the acquittal a “provocation” and said Greeks had endured numerous austerity measures during the crisis, partly because of all the cases of corruption that had cost the Greek state. The centre-right Kathimerini newspaper stressed “the bitter aftertaste” left by this affair and “the inability of the political and legal system to carry out a sixteen-year investigation”. Ta Nea (centre right) observed that “a case which had engaged public opinion and rocked the Greek political scene was hastily closed and placed under the ‘rug of regulation'”.
“The feeling of injustice hovers everywhere”
Surprised by this acquittal, the prosecutor of the Court of Cassation, Isidoros Dogiakos, ordered a preliminary investigation to determine the reasons for the slowness of the proceedings, which led to the statute of limitations.
On the News247 page, columnist Yannis Albanis estimates that “in Greece, the elite think that the citizens are so resigned or so cynical (or both) that they won’t react”. But the anger of many Greeks has also exploded on social networks. “Is that justice?” A washing machine [qui] relieve Christophorakos and the other accused! ‘ protested one user on Twitter. “We live in a country where you get jail for free and where you get congratulated if you steal from the state,” adds another.
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