Skai TV condemns midnight raid by prosecutor
Skai TV’s management has described a midnight raid by a prosecutor and police of its premises late Monday night in search of Kyriakos Thomaidis, the presenter of the sports show “Trial on Skai,” as an “affront to the rule of law and the freedom of the press.”
Three police officers initially entered the building housing the TV station on Athens’s southern coast before the show began with the intent of detaining Thomaidis.
But the journalist refused to leave with them as they did not have an arrest warrant and the show aired as scheduled. But they returned with a warrant and a prosecutor after the show had ended and searched the premises for the journalist before leaving at 2.40 a.m. after being unable to locate him.
Skai called the incident “unprecedented,” adding that the warrant for Thomaidis’s arrest had been issued following a “baseless” complaint from Vangelis Marinakis, owner of Olympiakos soccer club.