A prosecutor has shelved the case concerning bribery allegations made last week by Independent Greeks lawmaker Pavlos Haikalis ahead of Tuesday’s second round of voting in parliament to elect a Greek head of state, saying he failed to find enough evidence to back up the claim.
 
According to the findings of an investigation conducted by prosecutor Panayiotis Panayiotopoulos, ‘no evidence was found…and the claim could not be substantiated”.
 
However, the prosecutor ignored calls by Haikalis and others to lift the confidentiality on phone calls of himself and George Apostolopoulos.
Haikalis insists that this would demonstrate his allegations and who Apostolopoulos was taking orders from.
 
Haikalis, who is also an actor, claimed last week that he was offered a bribe of between 2 and €3 million to vote for the coalition government’s nominee for president, former EU Commissioner for the Environment Stavros Dimas.
 
Who is George Apostolopoulos, the middleman?
 
The lawmaker said the attempted bribery was made by George Apostolopoulos on the orders of the Greek Premier Antonis Samaras, who lashed back saying he would sue the lawmaker for slander.
 
According to a report by Kathimerini (link in Greek), Apostolopoulos
“always had connections with the country’s political and business leaders”.
 
The paper says that he was closely linked to the so-called ‘old Pasok’ of the 80s and 90s and had a nickname, Fritz.
 
He also worked for Intracom,a Greek group of companies, specialising in computer and defence system software development, owned by business magnate Sokratis Kokkalis.  
 
In the past, he also worked as an associate for Deutsche Bank while in 2013-14 he worked as an associate for Piraeus Bank, as a link to foreign banks.
 
He was also a ‘friend’ or consultant at the political offices of two prime ministers. He was an unofficial aide to Nikos Athanasakis, head of the office of George Papandreou in 2009-10, when he was prime minister.
 
In 2013, Apostolopoulos served as an adviser to Independent Greeks leader Panos Kammenos.
 
According to Kathimerini, he was hired on the recommendation of Dimitris Stamatis, now the Minister of State. They were introduced when New Democracy was the main opposition party and Kammenos was an associate of Samaras.
 
What the middleman offered Haikalis
 
According to the audio recordings of the conversations between the two men, Apostolopoulos offered Haikalis, apart from the  €2 million (with €700,000 as a down payment), other ‘services’ as well, like changing the terms of a loan he had taken from Piraeus Bank and securing advertising contracts.  
 
Apostolopoulos has not denied that his voice is heard in the recordings but claims the conversations had been edited. He also claims that Haikalis had made it clear that he would vote for Dimas if he got something in exchange. Apostolopoulos said that he offered the bribe to trap Haikalis and expose him.
 
Speaking to reporters after appearing before the Parliament’s ethics committee, Haikalis claimed he would have received the money from Apostolopoulos himself or from the chief guard of Piraeus Bank president Michalis Sallas.
 
In a previously recorded conversation, Apostolopoulos told Haikalis that all the political parties were on the take, especially Potami (The River) of TV journalist Stavros Theodorakis.
 
Haikalis recorded his conversations with Apostolopoulos with a device on his watch. However, the prosecutor did not accept his audio-visual recordings as evidence and reportedly queried why Haikalis had not informed authorities prior to his meetings with Apostolopoulos.
 
The prosecutor also reportedly said that Haikalis probably went public with the case to pre-empt Apostolopoulos who, apparently, also recorded their conversations.
 
Matters were further complicated after Haikalis also revealed he had given Apostolopoulos €5,000 to invest on the stock market.
 
Greek MPs are not allowed to own shares and the parliament committee that monitors the origin of wealth declaration of MPs (pothen esches) was set to begin an inquiry to establish if Haikalis had indeed violated these rules.
 
Haikalis later retracted, telling reporters he loaned the money so that Apostolopoulos himself could play it on the stock market