Third judge to probe Siemens
A proposal by Supreme Court prosecutor Yiannis Tentes for a third appeals court magistrate to be appointed to the investigation into the growing cash-for-contracts scandal involving the Greek branch of the German electronics and engineering group Siemens was approved yesterday. Nikolaos Pipiligas is today to join the efforts of fellow judges Maria Nikolakea and Yiannis Fiorakis, who have some 300,000 pages of legal briefs to get through. In a related development, it emerged that a parliamentary session would be held on Tuesday to discuss the creation of a new investigative committee to probe a structured bond scandal that rocked the conservative New Democracy government in 2007. This committee would be the third to be established by the current government, which has set up similar panels to look into the Siemens affair and the Vatopedi land-exchange scandal.
