New testimony from Antonis Kantas, the former deputy director of the Defense Ministry’s Department of Procurement, has provided new details of how the ‘black money’ was routed through numerous bank accounts. Without naming him, Kantas appears to have implicated former PM Konstantinos Mitsotakis in the ever growing bribery scandal over arms contracts.
According to Kantas’s testimony as published in full online by the Vima newspaper (link in Greek), the former defense official provided detailed accounts of how bribery deals were struck and how payments were made. Furthermore he shed further light on an incident involving a powerful political ‘father’.
Specifically Mr Kantas is reported to have said, “Around 2006-2007 when I was in Efstathiou’s office [Panos Efstathiou, the representative for German arms companies in Athens, has confessed disbursing millions of euros worth of bribes of millions] in Ploutarchou St., Mr Liginos [a Swiss-Greek banker] came – obviously to update Efstathiou on his accounts. Because I was there he [Liginos] said to Efstathiou, “I’m going to pop over to see the ‘Father’ next door and I will be back soon.” When Liginos left, I asked Efstathiou who the ‘Father’ was and he told me that he was an old politician, an old friend but one who was greedy. When I saw Liginos in Geneva in March 2008 I asked him which politician was the ‘Father’ but he would not name him.”
Several news outlets, such as iefimerida.gr (link in Greek), are speculating that the “Father” referred to by Kantas may be Constantine Mitsotakis.
The patriarch of one of the three political dynasties in Greece, Constantine Mitsotakis is almost 90 years old. He was already an MP in the 40’s. He served as PM from 1990 until 1993 when he was overthrown by one of his own ministers: Antonis Samaras – now the current Prime Minister. Constantine Mitsotakis’s son, Kyriakos, is the current Minister of Public Reform in charge of reforming the civil sector (and laying off thousands of civil servants). His daughter, Dora Bakoyiannis, an ex-minister herself, contended for the leadership of New Democracy against Samaras in 2008 but was defeated. In 2008, there were allegations (see newspapers headlines on 6/6/2008 and an article by The Economist) that Kyriakos Mitsotakis had received “gifts” (allegedly, he didn't pay for telecoms equipment installed in his office) from Siemens, the German firm that was found to have channeled illicit payments worth hundreds of millions to the two main governing political parties in Greece, New Democracy and PASOK.
During Kantas’s first testimony to magistrates in mid-December he had described how senior politicians, even from the same party, often took differing positions over defense contracts during public debates. For instance, when the purchase of new fighter planes was being discussed, Kantas claims that during parliamentary debates Mitsotakis supported the F-16 tender. But Miltiadis Evert – the then leader of New Democracy (Mitsotakis’s party) as well as the then (PASOK) minister of Defense Akis Tsohatzopoulos, who is now imprisoned on corruption charges, supported the purchase of a different aircraft.
Mr Kantas said, “I would like to add that it is indicative of how corruption permeates the whole political spectrum by stating that during the procurement of planes in the Parliamentary Committee of Defense, where I was present, Mitsotakis was arguing with very detailed data in favor of the F-16, while Evert in favour of the F-15. This surprised me since they were both in the same party. Indeed, when the F-16s were chosen, in the corridors of the Defense Ministry, the humorous phrase was going around that Mitsotakis won because Tsochatzopoulos was supporting the same as Evert – the F-15s, that were represented by Liakounakos [a Greek arms dealer].
I am referring to this to point out how complicated and permeating both parties was the issue of arms procurements since leaders of the same party were backing different products and were fighting each other, allying with members from opposite parties”.