KEELPNO rejects Kammenos bribe claim
The Hellenic Center for Disease Control and Prevention (KEELPNO) on Tuesday dismissed allegations by Defense Minister Panos Kammenos that the organization had bribed journalists as “totally baseless.”
After a meeting of the Independent Greeks parliamentary group, Kammenos rushed to the ESIEA journalists’ union offices to submit a list of media organizations and reporters he claimed received suspicious payments from KEELPNO.
“It is a full list of journalists and TV channels that received European Union money [intended for vaccines] in order to aim their fire at specific political forces,” Kammenos said as he left Parliament. However, neither ESIEA nor KEELPNO found anything suspicious in the list.
“All the years the center has been operating it has never paid money to any journalist. Instead it carries out awareness campaign through the media – television, radio, print and Internet – always in cooperation with the official companies or groups and always following the proper guidelines,” said KEELPNO president Athanasios Yiannopoulos. “As such, any supposed list of specific journalists is totally baseless.”
ESIEA also said that there is no indication of any wrongdoing. “At the moment and based on the facts that have been submitted, in no way can any names be associated with possible bribery,” said the union’s disciplinary committee, which pledged to investigate further.
