Publisher ‘asked for huge payoff’
Far right-wing publisher Grigoris Michalopoulos, on trial for blackmailing businessmen and churchmen whom he allegedly threatened with assassination by the November 17 terrorist group, came to blows in court yesterday with a prosecution witness who accused him of demanding a 100-million-drachma (293,000 euro) payoff. The process was suspended after Michalopoulos, who owns the Eleftheri Ora newspaper, started trading insults with businessman Argyris Saliarelis, but the two briefly fought before police could intervene. Saliarelis, a former owner of the Olympiakos soccer club, said Michalopoulos, 66, made the demand in 1998 after a reporter for the publisher’s Tiletora TV station asked for a 10-million-drachma bribe to broadcast an interview with the businessman. According to Saliarelis, when he complained, Michalopoulos told him: «Never mind that, that was for [the reporter]. Now I want 100 million drachmas to get you off the November 17 hit list.» In 2003, 15 people were convicted of belonging to the extreme left-wing group.
