Report blames Siemens judge
A new report by a top Supreme Court official into alleged dereliction of duty and abuse of power by Nikos Zagorianos, the magistrate who had been heading the investigation into the Siemens bribery scandal until last month, claims that the latter «intentionally» secured impunity for former Siemens Hellas CEO Michalis Christoforakos, Kathimerini has learned. According to the report by Supreme Court Vice President Ioannis Papanikolaou, seen by Kathimerini, Zagorianos «selectively omitted from the list of charges accompanying the warrant for the arrest of Christoforakos several misdeeds dating from 2004 to 2007 and concerning the C41 contract [a 250-million-euro security contract for the Athens 2004 Olympics], bribes and money laundering.» According to Papanikolaou, this «serious omission» was intentional on the part of Zagorianos, his aim being to protect Christoforakos from trial on criminal charges in the event of his extradition from Germany to Greece. Last week, a top German court overturned a previous judicial ruling permitting Christoforakos’s extradition to Greece.
