Deputy prosecutor sees no case in bribery allegations
The deputy prosecutor responsible for investigating allegations by Independent Greeks MP Pavlos Haikalis that he was offered a bribe in order to back the government’s presidential candidate has concluded that there is no basis for criminal prosecution.
In a decision forwarded on Tuesday to his superior, Appeals Prosecutor Isidoros Dogiakos, Panagiotis Panagiotopoulos said that the case files contains insufficient evidence to back Haikalis’s claims that he was offered a large amount of money by alleged middleman Giorgos Apostolopoulos in exchange for his vote.
Haikalis maintained last week that he had been approached over two weeks ago to vote in favor of the government’s candidate for president, former European commissioner Stavros Dimas, after the comedian Lakis Lazopoulos, who is left-leaning, told ANT1 television channel that he had witnessed an attempt to bribe Haikalis. The latter subsequently called in to the show to confirm the claim, saying he had been offered 700,000 euros to vote for president with the offer being raised to 2 million euros when he refused.
