NEWS

Prosecutor drops probe into ex-minister’s death threat claims

Prosecutor drops probe into ex-minister’s death threat claims

A probe into claims by former citizens’ protection minister Yiannis Panousis that his life was threatened by prisoners and that SYRIZA officials had friendly ties with the criminals and terrorists who made the threats been shelved.

Supreme Court deputy prosecutor Dimitris Dasoulas revealed on Wednesday that he had found no evidence to support these claims and, as such, has decided to drop the investigation, which began when Panousis made the allegations in November.

According to the evidence Dasoulas gathered, the first time that threats against Panousis were made was in April, during a conversation between two inmates that was secretly recorded by authorities. However, the judicial official notes that the convicts spoke in a menacing manner about other ministers in the SYRIZA-Independent Greeks government, as well as New Democracy politicians who served in previous administrations. The names of judges were also mentioned during the conversation.

Dasoulas also found no evidence suggesting that Panos Lambrou, a SYRIZA official and one-time adviser to Justice Minister Nikos Paraskevopoulos, had any part in such conversations. It had been reported that Panousis claimed Lambrou, a prison rights campaigner, had ties to jailed terrorists. However, the prosecutor found that inmates also criticized Lambrou in their conversations.

Following the prosecutor’s findings, judicial authorities will now move on to investigating how the details of conversations recorded by the National Intelligence Service were leaked to the media.

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