The probe into the alleged blackmail of former Culture Ministry secretary general Christos Zachopoulos took an unexpected turn yesterday when publisher and TV presenter Themos Anastasiadis, accused of breaching the ex-public official’s privacy rights by trading a DVD with explicit material, demanded the removal of the magistrate examining the case on that grounds that he is not impartial.

Anastasiadis appeared before Dimitris Economou yesterday to face questioning over allegations that he had met with Zachopoulos’s former assistant Evi Tsekou and copied footage that she showed him of the pair having sex.

Anastasiadis has been accused of using the DVD to bargain with the government over a financial crimes squad investigation into payments of some 5 million euros found in his bank accounts.

However, Anastasiadis and his legal team requested the replacement of Economou after the magistrate reportedly refused to allow the publisher to see the results of the financial crimes squad probe, claiming that his tax statements suggested that he should “not have even one euro” in his accounts.

The TV presenter left the court claiming that he was being victimized.

“The people behind this prosecution are corrupt politicians and the man executing it in return for considerable financial benefit is [Anastasiadis’s former publishing partner] Makis Triantafylopoulos,” he said.

A council of judges is due to meet today to decide whether to grant the appeal, in which case a new magistrate will be appointed. This is likely to lead to a significant delay in the case as the new judicial official will have to familiarize himself with the details of the case.