Handling of Novartis investigation to be probed
A deputy Supreme Court prosecutor on Tuesday was assigned to investigate the handling by judicial authorities of allegations, which have so far proved groundless, that 10 prominent politicians had received bribes from Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis in the 2009-2013 period.
Dimitris Dasoulas was ordered by outgoing Supreme Court prosecutor Xeni Dimitriou to conduct a probe into the investigation, which is expected to focus on claims by a high court official who was responsible for supervising the corruption investigation.
Ioannis Angelis resigned in January as one of the Supreme Court's deputy prosecutors, claiming that he had been manipulated and that a premeditated decision had been made to implicate the 10 politicians in question.
He stepped down in the wake of a media report alleging that he and a group of other prosecutors were offered information about a former Greek minister during a meeting with American judicial officials in Vienna in November 2018 but that he refused to accept the information, dismissing it as the product of wiretapping.
Angelis' claims had been filed, but are now being reinvestigated, along with the role of chief corruption prosecutor Eleni Touloupaki, who was largely responsible for the handling of the Novartis probe.
