Two lawyers accused of helping the assistant to former Culture Ministry general secretary Christos Zachopoulos blackmail the former public official were remanded in custody yesterday after being questioned for several hours by magistrate Dimitris Economou.

Both men, Iraklis Koutelidas and Dimitris Balerbas, deny trying to squeeze favors out of Zachopoulos by using his extramarital affair with his former assistant, Evi Tsekou, as a way to blackmail him.

Zachopoulos claims that the pressure being exerted by Tsekou, who was remanded in custody last December, and the lawyers drove him to attempt suicide.

Costas Plevris, the lawyer for one of the defendants, said the legal system in Greece was like a web “that catches small insects but lets the big ones get away.”

Zachopoulos was released from the hospital last week.