New prosecutorial investigation into the Attiki Odos contract

There is a new twist in the government contract with Attiki Odos. The relevant court file is being dusted off and the case will be investigated anew by the First Instance Court.

This has come about because prosecutor George Haliassos disagreed with a First Instance Court prosecutor colleague of his, who requested the archiving of the case.

Not only does Mr. Haliassos not support the archiving of the file, but also he is going back to the First Instance Court in order to investigate the case all over again.

The case has occupied the prosecutortial services since the summer of 2009 when the then Supreme Court prosecutor George Sanidas called on the First Instance Court of Athens to examine the contracts related to the price of construction of Attiki Odos, and the provisions of the controversial agreement concerning the granting of the utilisation of the project back to the Greek government.

Based on the Sanidas request, the First Instance Court had to determine whether the conditions of the contract for the construction of Attiki Odos in terms of years of utilisation by the contractor etc., were being followed.

The former Supreme Court prosecutor also requested that the First Instance Court investigate if the contractor has collected the total receivable sum as provided for in the contract based on the number of cars that have used the road until now.

Finally, the prosecutor stated that there should be an investigation on whether the public sector is being damaged financially  by the fact that the contractor is still managing the project.

Under Mr. Sanidas’ order, a survey was conducted by a First Instance Court prosecutor who, however, was of the opinion that the case should be archived.

Instead, Public Prosecutor Mr. Haliassos, who had the final say, decided that the case should be looked into further. For this reason, he is sending the file back to the First Instance Court, which means an investigation must begin anew.