NEWS

Venizelos won’t be called to give evidence in Papaconstantinou trial

Former Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos will not give evidence at the trial of his predecessor Giorgos Papaconstantinou, it was decided on Thursday.

Papaconstantinou is being tried in a special court for allegedly doctoring the Lagarde list of Greeks with deposits in Switzerland.

Prosecutor Xeni Dimitriou-Vassilopoulou had asked for Venizelos to be called but the court rejected the request.

Venizelos’s secretary Sofia Belba gave evidence on Thursday and told the court that ex-Financial Crimes Squad (SDOE) chief Yiannis Diotis gave the former minister a memory stick containing the list in August 2011.

Venizelos then asked Belba to store the device.

She said that when Venizelos left the ministry in March 2012, the memory stick was taken to PASOK headquarters along with other items from her office.

It was only in October 2012, when the issue of why authorities had not investigated the list properly arose, that Venizelos asked about the USB device again.

Belba said she found it among the items in her office, opened the files to check that it was the correct one and, on Venizelos’s instructions, sent it to the office of then Prime Minister Antonis Samaras so it could be forwarded for investigation.

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