Novartis trial continues with testimony from former protected witness

According to reporting by ERT, Destembasidis insisted that he never intended to target political figures and that he did not personally accuse any politician of accepting bribes. He repeated his claim that everything he testified was based solely on what he had been told by Konstantinos Frouzis, the former vice-president of Novartis Hellas.

“I never said that Antonis Samaras, Yiannis Stournaras or Evangelos Venizelos were bribed. For the other individuals, I only conveyed what Frouzis told me,” he reportedly stated.

Destembasidis described Novartis as “a very corrupt company”, alleging that it maintained a slush fund. “It was the OPEKEPE of medicine,” he said, referring to Greece’s agricultural payments agency, and claimed that money existed “for doctors, executives and public officials”, though he added that he did not know how or whether it was used.

During the hearing, the presiding judge twice asked Destembasidis whether he had ever been a protected witness in the United States. He declined to answer both times, invoking his right to remain silent. The defence’s examination is ongoing.

At first instance, the Athens Single-Member Misdemeanor Court found both former protected witnesses guilty of repeated false accusation and false testimony. Destembasidis, under the pseudonym “Maximos Sarafis”, was convicted of falsely accusing Adonis Georgiadis, Andreas Loverdos and Nikos Maniadakis, while the court expressed doubts about his claims concerning other individuals. Maria Marangeli, known as “Aikaterini Kelesi”, was found guilty of false accusation regarding her testimony about Adonis Georgiadis, Ioannis Stournaras, Andreas Loverdos, Marios Salmas and Antonis Samaras.

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