After the court decision of former minister G. PapantoniouHis lawyer, Michalis Dimitrakopoulos, described the decision as “fair” and explained the reasons.
In detail he said:
“The unanimous acquittal of Yannos Papantoniou by the Tripartite Court of Appeal of Athens it is FAIR for the following reasons: For 8 months, the Court of Appeal exhaustively investigated the essential validity of the crimes of disloyalty and passive bribery, because according to the case law of the Supreme Court, the establishment of these basic crimes constitutes the core of the objective nature of money laundering as an illegal activity. The weighty evidence for the court to judge that there was no harm to the State with the modernization of the six S frigates was:
- These frigates guard the country’s maritime borders to this day and we did not “flee” them to guard the borders of Alaska.
- This decision was made by multi-member committees of the Navy and KYSEA. The cost of modernization was 381 million and the cost of purchasing 6 new frigates was 4.2 billion, which was not in the budget. It took 22 years to purchase new frigates from the SAME COMPANY that modernized the old frigates
- The 2007 Plenary Session of the State Legal Council opined that the modernization contract was absolutely legal and served the public interest.
Regarding the alleged bribery, the records presented the same superficial evidentiary evidence as in the Novartis case, with the supervising prosecutor, Ms. Eleni Touloupaki. No bank deposits were found, no witnesses were found, no evidence was found to structure the bribery. There was only one deceased person, who in 2003 made cash withdrawals, which were unsuccessfully attempted to be identified with cash deposits by Yannos Papantoniou. These cash withdrawals and deposits did not coincide either in time or in amount. Giannos Papantoniou gave sufficient explanations about the origin of the money. I always say that we must respect the presumption of innocence and this was demonstrated in practice in the case of the former minister.”