Moeder voormalig Griekse premier stort ¤500 miljoen op Zwitserse bank

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An official with the Greek financial crimes squad SDOE has reportedly said that Margaret Papandreou, mother of former Prime Minister George Papandreou, is involved with a deposit of 550 million euros ($714.28 million) in the Geneva, Switzerland branch of HSBC, the biggest on a list of 2,059 Greeks with accounts there who haven’t been checked for tax evasion.

She is also the former wife of the late Andreas Papandreou, a former Prime Minister who was George Papandreou’s father. George Papandreou resigned as Premier a year ago after two years of ceaseless protests, strike and riots against austerity measures he imposed on the orders of international lenders. He later gave up the head of the PASOK Socialists party his father co-founded.

The depositor is reportedly a civil servant named Maria Panteli, but according to the Greek newspaper To Vima, Nikolaos Lekkas, the Manager-Comptroller of SDOE, said that, “Behind the biggest deposit on the list is Mrs. Margarita Papandreou.”

The list was originally given by then French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde – now the head of the International Monetary Fund, one of Greece’s lenders – to former Finance Minister George Papanconstantinou, who said it went missing. Now called “The Lagarde List,” it details names of Greek depositors that were included on a larger list of names throughout Europe that was stolen from the bank by an employee.

The names were published on a website by Greek journalist Costas Vaxevanis, who was acquitted on charges of violating privacy rights but is facing prosecution again on the same charge because the prosecutor disagreed with the finding. Vaxevanis said Greece is covering up tax evasion and the list still hasn’t been examined although it was given to Greek officials more than two years ago.

The report, a shifting convoluted tale, indicated that Panteli worked for a wealthy business executive, Sabi Mioni, who was born in Greece but now lives in Tel Aviv. Panteli has yet to be questioned. Vaxevanis reportedly said that Mioni told him that Panteli managed his financial affairs.

To Vima said that current SDOE chief Stelios Stassinopoulos, a friend of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, is aware of the story and that a director of a peripheral administration, Evangelos Karamanos, said Margaret Papandreou’s name was raised in a meeting of five SDOE officials, but that it was not revealed to a Parliamentary committee investigating the list.

The paper also said that a lawyer, whose name was given only as St. Papastavrou – now an advisor to Samaras – also was a counsel to Mioni and that the deposits in the Swiss bank were legal.

Another former SDOE chief, Yiannis Kapeleris, reportedly said that Panteli’s list was on a list of the top 10 depositors – hers was the biggest – with $1.95 billion in the Swiss bank. Papaconstantinou previously testified that he asked Kapeleris to investigate the names, but Kapeleris insisted he was asked only for the tax profiles of the biggest depositors.

Papaconstantinou's successor, Evangelos Venizelos – now PASOK’s head – said he had a copy of the list on a memory stick but never acted on it because he said it was stolen goods, although Lagarde said other European countries had used to go after suspected tax cheats.

Karmanos reportedly said he was left out of the loop and was not ordered to investigate the names. Tax evaders are costing Greece more than $70 billion and Samaras made no mention of pursuing them when he got the Parliament to narrowly approve a $17.45 billion spending cut and tax hike plan that again goes after Greece’s workers, pensioners and the poor while letting tax cheats escape.

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Op maandag 3 december 2012 00:59 schreef BaajGuardian het volgende:
als dit waar is is een revolt imo rechtvaardig.