Supreme Court prosecutor seeks indictment of 11 far-right MPs and the jailed former member of the banned Golden Dawn party, Ilias Kasidiaris, for election fraud.
Greek Supreme Court prosecutor Georgia Adeilini on Thursday sought the indictment of 1O MPs of the far-right Spartans party, one former member of the party who has kept his parliamentary seat and one jailed former member of the banned Golden Dawn party, Ilias Kasidiaris, for election fraud.
Adeilini called Kasidiaris the moral perpetrator of fraud of the electorate, as her investigation showed that there was a hidden leadership in the party and Kasidiaris was the real leader of the Spartans.
Media reported that Kasidiaris had contacts with the Spartans’ MP candidates and pulled the strings from prison, guiding the party executives but also making a decisive contribution.
Right after prosecution announcement, two Spartans MPs, Ioannis Dimitrokalis and Giorgos Manousos stepped down from the party but kept their parliamentary seats.
“Following the criminal prosecution ordered by the Prosecutor’s Office of the Supreme Court against my 11 colleagues as well as me personally, following the false and slanderous complaints of the President of the Spartans, Vasilis Stigkas, I inform you that I am leaving Spartans’ parliamentary group. My stay in it until now had to do with my belief that the Greek judiciary would not find even a shred of credibility in these false statements, especially after the evidence I presented before it,” said Manousos.
Adeilini ordered an investigation when Vasilis Stigkas, official leader of the Spartans, which first won seats in Greece’s latest parliamentary elections, in September removed three of his 12 MPs – Ioannis Kontis, Ioannis Dimitrokalis and Haris Hatzivardas – accusing them of connections with “the Greek mafia.”
They all returned to the party, but in January, Hatzivardas, who is also Kasidiaris’s lawyer, became an independent MP.
Stigkas said there had been an attempt by extra-institutional circles to overthrow him as party leader because they wanted to get their hands on its state funding.
In Greece’s June 25 parliamentary elections, the Spartans gained fifth place in parliament with 4.68 per cent of the vote and 12 seats –now nine.
Kasidiaris, who was jailed for his leading role in the banned neonazi Golden Dawn party, announced his support on Twitter for the Spartans from his prison cell.
Previously, his far-right National Party – Greeks was blocked from participation in elections by the Supreme Court. The decision was based on legislation that excludes parties whose leaders have been convicted of serious crimes from elections. In turn, many members of Kasidiaris’s party joined the Spartans.
Adeline’s request to the First Instance Prosecutor’s Office does not include the Spartans’ leader; however, she asks for the indictment of the lawyer Sotirios Metaxas, a party official who allegedly participated in the contacts between Kasidiaris and Spartans’ MP candidates.
If the MPs are found guilty, the ruling New Democracy party and opposition parties will get more parliamentary seats.
