Total responsibility of ministers is what Akis will say

Former PASOK minister Akis Tsochatzopoulos is accused of money laundering, a crime which is considered a felony, and it is possible he will be held in custody after his Monday plea in front of the magistrate Gavriil Mallis. Already, the former minister has spent four days in jail at police headquarters in Athens.

According to the district attorneys investigating the case, he made his fortune thanks to a labyrinthine network of offshore companies, through which he laundered part of the money he had received after buying the TOR-M1 armament programmes and the German submarines, investing his gains in the purchase of luxurious properties.

The full amount found to have been earned from this agreement signing amounts to 17 million euros. Apart from this, Tsochatzopoulos also had income from selling part of his properties that were considered a “bribery product”. Moreover, it is indicated that the former minister had received a pre-agreement amount for the TOR – M1 but none of his staff officers at the time agreed to buy them.

The file against him is a 12,000-page one and he will be called upon to rebut all the charges against him.

No matter what the evidence proves, he and his lawyers say this is about a pre-election media game staged against him.

Until now, the former minister has said that

- the Government Council for Foreign Affairs and Defence, KYSEA, approved this purchase in 2000 and then, when he became Defense minister, authorized him to proceed. So, he asked that all the then members to testify but his appeal was denied.

- that he himself served as Defense minister until 2001 but the submarine construction continues even today.

- that he is being charged in a case already closed since 2004, when it passed though the Parliament Inquiry Committee, the members of which did not find any incriminating evidence against him.

- and finally, that the arrest warrant against him is illegal because he has never been unwilling to cooperate with the authorities.

It is important that along with Tsochatzopoulos 14 more people, among them Asterios Oikonomidis who is already being held in custody, the former minister’s wife and daughter and his accountant, also face charges of money laundering.