ND back to full strength

Independent MP to rejoin party after prosecutor shelves graft probe for good

New Democracy is preparing to welcome back into its fold independent MP Costas Koukodimos after a prosecutor decided yesterday to shelve for good the probe into the deputy allegedly acting as a middleman between the former head of the financial crimes squad and a journalist.

Sources said yesterday that Koukodimos could return to the ruling conservative party as early as today. This would boost ND’s seats in Parliament back up to 152 from 151.

The head of the party’s parliamentary group, Yiannis Tragakis, said yesterday that the former long jumper was “on the threshold” of returning.

New Democracy’s parliamentary majority was reduced to just one at the end of January when Koukodimos announced he would sit as an independent following his implication in the Zachopoulos scandal.

Koukodimos denied any part in the affair after journalist Makis Triantafyllopoulos claimed that the MP approached him on behalf of financial crimes squad chief Spyros Kladas, who wanted his name kept out of reports about the affair involving former Culture Ministry general secretary Christos Zachopoulos.

Kladas had allegedly been contacted by Zachopoulos’s assistant Evi Tsekou, who wanted to find a permanent job in the state sector. Tsekou was later arrested for allegedly blackmailing Zachopoulos.

Triantafyllopoulos alleged that Kladas, via Koukodimos, offered to drop an investigation into the journalist’s then publishing partner at the Proto Thema newspaper, Themos Anastassiadis.

The probe had been looking into how some 5.5 million euros ended up in Anastassiadis’s bank account.

Prosecutor Maria Gane shelved her investigation for good yesterday after declaring that there was not enough evidence to substantiate the journalist’s claim and that there was nothing untoward in the way the financial crimes squad conducted its probe.

The return of Koukodimos could make the position of fellow MP Petros Tatoulis more insecure. Tatoulis has been outspoken in his criticism of the party but as long as ND’s parliamentary majority was only one, no action could be taken against him. Tragakis said yesterday that any MP voting against a government bill would be thrown out of the party but added that Tatoulis had so far always backed draft laws put forward by the ruling conservatives.