Latsis coerced, top aide claims
A legal adviser to the group of companies owned by business magnate Yiannis Latsis testified yesterday that far-right publisher Grigoris Michalopoulos had tried to blackmail the entrepreneur on several occasions. Leonardos Hadziandreou claimed that Latsis had been worried about a series of articles which appeared in the Eleftheri Ora newspaper, owned by Michalopoulos, in which he felt the publisher was encouraging the November 17 terrorist organization to target him. Hadziandreou added that Michalopoulos had tried to blackmail Latsis before publishing a book about his life which claimed to reveal scandals about the tycoon’s business deals. Sila Alexiou, the daughter of the late journalist Spyros Alexiou who worked in the Latsis press office, backed the allegation in court yesterday, the second day of Michalopoulos’s trial. He is facing blackmail charges after allegedly warning several high-profile figures that they were November 17 targets and demanding large sums to have them removed from its hit list.
