Athens: court summons for journalists in Novartis affair
Law enforcement authorities in Greece have dropped investigations against another two politicians suspected of illegal practices in connection with the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis. Last month, journalists Kostas Vaxevanis and Ioanna Papadakou, who uncovered the scandal, were accused of involvement and summoned before a special investigator. The national press reflects the diametrically opposed perspectives on the case.
Judiciary is distorting the reality
Kostas Vaxevanis, one of the accused journalists and editor of the weekly Documento, writes in his paper:
“Something is going on with the judiciary. It's as if it were being used in a contradictory way in the hands of an almost parastatal system. It is persecuting journalists who uncovered the scandal and twisting reality in a way that threatens not only individuals, but also democracy. Let's not fool ourselves: the same witnesses, or some of them, presented the same evidence before the American judiciary and this led to a justified conviction of Novartis. So how is it that here in Greece things are turned upside down with the help of the judiciary?”
All a conspiracy against the governing party
The news website Liberal writes:
“It is a conspiracy organised to harm certain political figures. Everything was done so that photos of Adonis Georgiadis [minister for economic development and investment] and Giannis Stournaras [former finance minister and president of the Bank of Greece] in handcuffs would appear shortly before the 2019 elections. ... The Novartis plot played an important role in convincing the last voters who identify as centre-left or even moderate left and who were hesitant to vote for Nea Demokratia that the country urgently needs major political change. ... The case of Novartis must not be forgotten. A strange, naturally sad 'never again'; that is what the Novartis case is.”