The former Culture Ministry general secretary, Christos Zachopoulos, who tried to commit suicide last December, is set to begin giving evidence to prosecutor Dimitris Economou tomorrow, sources said.

Zachopoulos has been unable to face questioning until now, as he has been recovering from the serious injuries he suffered after jumping from the balcony of his fourth-floor apartment in Athens’s Kolonaki district some four months ago.

The former public official and close aide of Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis is still not well enough to appear in court, so Economou will visit him in the Evangelismos Hospital. Zachopoulos’s former assistant, Evi Tsekou, and her lawyer Christos Nikoloutsopoulos have been remanded in custody on suspicion of blackmailing Zachopoulos over his affair with Tsekou.