Diotis submits Lagarde list e-mails
It emerged Tuesday that former Finance Minister Giorgos Papaconstantinou only passed a memory stick containing the names of some 2,000 Greeks with deposits at a Swiss branch of HSBC to authorities after he had been moved to a different department.
Yiannis Diotis, the former head of the Financial Crimes Squad (SDOE), had previously told the parliamentary committee probing the handling of the so-called Lagarde list that he received the USB device from Papaconstantinou in June 2011, shortly before a reshuffle. However, he informed MPs on Tuesday that after going through his e-mails, he had discovered a message dated July 7 in which Papaconstantinou asked him whether he had received the memory stick. By that time, the reshuffle had happened and Papaconstantinou had been moved to the Environment Ministry.
“I have received it but I have not had time to check the content,” Diotis had replied by e-mail. “I am not the best at these sorts of things. I have already had discussions with Costas about investigating it further.”
“Costas” is a reference to the then head of the National Intelligence Service, Constantinos Bikas, who, according to the e-mail, also informed then Prime Minister George Papandreou.
In his response to Diotis, Papaconstantinou confirmed that he had asked the previous SDOE chief, Yiannis Kapeleris, to investigate the 30 biggest depositors on the list.
