Greek Court Convicts Novartis ‘Whistleblowers’ of False Testimony
Source: Balkan Insight
A court in Greece on Monday found two former protected witnesses – who claimed ten politicians were bribed by the Swiss global healthcare company Novartis, including two former prime ministers – guilty of false accusation and repeated false testimony.
Philistor Destempasides was convicted of making false accusations in 2017 and 2018 against former ministers Adonis Georgiadis, Andreas Loverdos and Nikos Maniadakis and handed a prison sentence of 25 months, suspended for three years.
Maria Marangeli was convicted of falsely accusing five politicians and public figures: Adonis Georgiadis, Yannis Stournaras, Andreas Loverdos, Marios Salmas and former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras. She was handed a prison sentence of 33 months with a three-year suspension.
Investigations into the witnesses’ claims did not result in any charges being brought, after which the politicians in question filed legal complaints, claiming they were victims of a politically driven conspiracy.
“Justice requires not only the punishment of the physical perpetrators [of the claims] but also the revelation of those who directed and orchestrated the Novartis conspiracy as moral instigators!” Samaras wrote on X on hearing the verdict.
Meanwhile, the defendants were acquitted of falsely accusing other officials.
Ioannis Apatsidis, one of Destempasides’s lawyers, said the verdict was likely to deter whistleblowers from coming forward about corruption in future.
“I am deeply disappointed that a message some sought to send was given, even in a diluted form: let no witness dare to announce potential acts of corruption,” Apatsidis said, adding that the defence team will appeal.
The former so-called whistleblowers had claimed that both centre-right New Democracy and centre-left PASOK politicians had been bribed by the Swiss company so that it could improve its position in the pharmaceutical sector in Greece.
The Greek State Legal Council filed a lawsuit in 2022 against Novartis’s allegedly illegal practices, seeking compensation of 214 million euros for actions that the company had admitted in the US related to payments to doctors. In July, the Athens Court of First Instance rejected the lawsuit, due to its vagueness.
US authorities said Novartis engaged “in corrupt schemes in a number of jurisdictions – including beyond simply Greece and Vietnam – to make illicit payments to secure business advantages dating back to as early as 2007”. Novartis entered into an out-of-court settlement of 345 million dollars with the US government in 2020.
The original article: belongs to Balkan Insight .
