Court documents indicate former minister Yiannis Michelakis was bribed by imprisoned shipowner Anastasios Pallis

Editor’s note: this story was initially published in Greek on the website ‘Kouti tis Pandoras’. It is republished here with permission. Translation by TPPI. Note: Mr Michelakis was Interior Minister until the Government reshuffle on Monday. He remains an MP with New Democracy.
 
The casefile, which is based on handwritten documents seized from Pallis and on the testimony of a former employee, was submitted to the Justice Ministry last February but was not passed on to parliament until the 30th of April. As a result parliament has yet to debate the potential suspension of Mr Michelakis’s parliamentary immunity over the apparent incidence of bribery that took place before Michelakis became a minister. This despite other, newer casefiles having already reached parliament.
 
Yiannis Michelakis has filed a suit against Hot Doc and its publisher Kostas Vaxevanis, maintaining through leaks that Hot Doc’s reporting on the story is based on untruths – but without having issued a formal denial. The truth is, however, quite different as is proven by the court documents secured by Kouti tis Pandoras [which Vaxevanis also runs].
 
Sworn testimony ‘burns’ Yiannis Michelakis
 
The [former] Interior Minister, according to the casefile, appears to have received 7,000 euros from Anastasios Pallis in order to submit a parliamentary question on behalf of Pallis’s interests and against shipowner Viktoras Restis with whom Pallis was in a bitter feud. Pallis has denied that the sum was given to Michelakis but is contradicted by his own handwritten notes and the sworn testimony of a former close aide – N.K.
 
N.K. began working for Pallis in 2008 when he was hired by the company Ronda Ship Management, and in 2012 he took a position at another Pallis controlled company – Transworld Enterprises. In sworn testimony from November 21st, 2013, N.K. claimed that he was authorised to withdraw money from company accounts and make payments as directed. For the Michelakis case he said, “The line ‘Michelakis 7000 euros’ referred to a payment that I did not make. Under the instruction of Mr Pallis I put the money in an envelope and gave it to him around the time that Yiannis Michelakos visited his residence on the 5th or 6th of February 2013.”
 
“Specifically Mr Michelakis had visited the home of Anastasios Pallis after midday from what I remember. He entered the house from the garage entrance which was used as the entrance to the museum and generally the residence and subsequently went to the part of the building where Pallis keeps his private collection of weapons and other items. As you ask me about the money which I had withdrawn, I placed the amount of 7,000 euros in the envelope which I mentioned, and I made a note of it for the accounts. From what Pallis said I understood that that money was given to Mr Michelakis and for that reason I wrote the relevant note on the document that you showed me. I don’t know the reason that the amount was given. But because I saw on the internet an article related to Mr Michelakis’s question for the company Ronda, I assumed that the money was given for that reason.”
 
The witness also testified that Pallis had given him a handwritten note dated 4th February 2013 on which was written the payments that had to be made in the coming days, Among those was Yiannis Michelakis’s name and next to it the amount of 7,000 euros.

 
“For the entry ‘7000 – Michelakis’, from what I can see from the document, initially Pallis had written the amount of 8000 and 6000 and subsequently crossed out the number 8 and he asked me to write next to it the number 7 in order for the sum to come to 7000 euros,” N.K. said. He also added, “Mr Michelakis had also visited the Pallis residence on an earlier date. During that visit Mr Michelakis and Mr Pallis were in the area of the private collections. At some point Pallis exited that area and came to the garage where I was, and asked that I put in an envelope an amount of that order (between 5 and 10 thousand euros) and give it to him. He subsequently returned to the private collection rooms. I understood that it amounted to a payment to Mr Michelakis, but I do not know for what reason.”
 
In his supplementary testimony, the employee of Anatasios Pallis gave the following explanation about the note on which the name of the [former] Interior Minister is written: “I believe that the amount of 39,595 euros which is in the parentheses is the remaining amount available for further payments which came after the specific one. If you observe the previous page there is the number 49,595 in parentheses which is the amount available following the preceding payment. Initially I believe he reckoned that he would pay 10,000 euros to Michelakis in which case the remainder would be 39,595 and following subsequent corrections – obviously to allow for all the other payments, the specific amount of 7,000 euros was established.”
 
Pallis wrote the question
 
The question in favour of Pallis’s interests which Michelakis submitted in the context of a parliamentary audit, came following another parliamentary question by New Democracy MP Athanasios Davlouros who, on the 31st of January 2013, asked the Finance and Justice ministers to provide an update on the reasons for the delays in the court investigation of a case of alleged fraud by Pallis against the telecommunications company OTE. That question, according to documents confiscated from Pallis, was sent to him at noon of the same day that it was submitted from a fax machine that belonged to parliament.
 
Pallis, thus informed of the development and from the ‘inside’, noted on a piece of paper which bears his stamp a new question, almost identical to the one that was submitted to parliament by Yiannis Michelakis. The points made by the question written by Pallis are almost identical to those in Michelakis’s question and concern dealings of his one time collaborator, and now bitter rival, Victor Restis.
 
Beyond that, however, serious questions for the [former] Interior Minister are also raised by the fact that Anastasios Pallis, in his testimony to an Athens Misdemeanour Court during pre-trial questioning over the affair, confirmed that Mr Michelakis had indeed visited him on the 4th or 5th of February 2013. Regarding the infamous question, the imprisoned shipowner stated, “In January of 2013, the New Democracy MP Anastasios Davlouros submitted a parliamentary question which, among other things concerned the business dealings of the company Ronda. Related to the above question, I wrote down by hand items that may be of interest to parliament and notified Yiannis Michelakis of the fact.” It is an admission which, if nothing else, proves the relationship of the [former] minister with the imprisoned Pallis.
 
The ‘odyssey’ of the casefile
 
Court investigators began dealing with the case regarding the potential bribery of the current [former] Interior Minister in the autumn. The casefile which was established by the Athens First Instance Prosecutor was sent to the Supreme Court on the 16th of December, 2013 in order for the latter to rule on the merits of the evidence, and subsequently it was sent to the Ministry of Justice on the 11th of February 2014.
 
The covering document from the Supreme Court stated that the casefile, “is transferred to the Parliamentary President via the Minister of Justice” with the latter’s role in the particular case – according to the constitution and the rules of parliament – being a formal one rather than to audit the file. Despite this, the Justice Minister, Mr Athanasiou, only two days before the original Hot Doc story was published revealing the case and having been informed by the magazine of the contents of the story, returned the casefile to the Supreme Court requesting, despite not having the competence (as he admitted in his letter to the Supreme Court Prosecutor) that the legal basis of the charges be re-examined.
 
The unprecedented attempt to cover up the case was fruitless and the Supreme Court exposed the Justice Minister by returning the casefile to him, noting on the relevant letter to Mr Athanasiou: “We (re)transfer the casfile and request for your actions given that prior to its initial transfer we had already submitted it to the audit required by Article 83 of the Rules of Parliament and as such competent for further actions is the Greek Parliament.
 
From October the vote to suspend the parliamentary immunity
 
The casefile against Yiannis Michelakis was sent to Parliament, as previously noted, on the 30th of April (and after Hot Doc had already highlighted the case) following a delay of many months. However, while the Parliamentary Ethics Committee was due to meet on Thursday in order to refer this and other cases to the plenary, parliament was suddenly shut.

As such the discussion over the suspension of the parliamentary immunity of Michelakis has now been deferred to the coming October in the next plenary assembly of parliament.