In a television interview, she alleged that there had been ‘mutual blackmail’ between prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, former minister Makis Voridis and Maximos Mansion, the seat of the prime minister’s office.
‘Makis Voridis was blackmailing Maximos Mansion. There was mutual blackmail between Mitsotakis, Voridis and Maximos,’ she said, before announcing that ‘I will request the arrests of ministers for the OPEKEPE scandal’.
The leader of Course of Freedom also claimed that Grigoris Varras had been pressured over his testimony and said he had sent a memorandum to Giorgos Mylonakis which was then suppressed.
It is recalled that on Tuesday, SYRIZA MP Alexandros Meikopoulos submitted a document to parliament which, he said, showed that the former head of OPEKEPE, the Greek agency responsible for administering EU farm subsidies, Grigoris Varras had warned the then minister for rural development, Makis Voridis, about the way the national reserve was being handled.
The confidential memorandum was sent on 27 July 2020 and, according to Meikopoulos, it also included nine proposals by Varras to his political superior aimed at limiting the problem.
‘Tell Mr Voridis immediately that he has been caught red-handed,’ the SYRIZA MP said, accusing the former minister of ‘perjury before the inquiry, because he said he had never received any information from Mr Varras about what was happening with the national reserve. He concealed documents and defamed others.’
Speaking in parliament yesterday, Konstantopoulou accused members of the government of blackmailing one another and described the situation as ‘mafia-like’. She argued that both the document itself and the fact that it has now been made public show that there was blackmail involving Voridis and Maximos Mansion.
‘That is why these documents are being leaked, because Varras, who is an associate of the prime minister, was not happy that you escaped the inquiry,’ she said, describing the situation as one of ‘mutual hostage-taking and a balance of terror at the same time’.
Addressing the former minister directly, she added that the document ‘either is forged or proves that you know someone destroyed it, and you have quite a record when it comes to the destruction of evidence’.
‘You operate like a mafia. The question is whether one mafia will neutralise the other or whether you will maintain omerta to protect each other,’ she said, concluding with a warning to Voridis: ‘When the time comes, the “big boss” will burn whoever he needs to in order to save his own skin.’
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