A controversial construction contractor and businessman cozy with the previous SYRIZA government in tandem with his high-profile efforts to purchase a nationwide television license nevertheless provided testimony on Thursday to a lower court magistrate regarding charges that a former minister committed offenses in the same TV license tender.
A controversial construction contractor and businessman cozy with the previous SYRIZA government in tandem with his high-profile efforts to purchase a nationwide television license nevertheless provided testimony on Thursday to a lower court magistrate regarding charges that a former minister committed offenses in the same TV license tender.
The charges are leveled at the former minister of digital policy, telecommunications and media, Nikos Pappas, considered as one of the closest confidants to ex-premier Alexis Tsipras and one of the most influential members of the latter's Cabinet.
On his part, according to reports, businessman Christos Kalogritsas testified that he was merely "carrying out orders of the (previous) government", something that he's also aired in public statements.
The tender in question was held in September 2016 via a complex and grueling 70-hour closed process, where bidders were kept in isolation at the relevant ministry’s offices.
Two of the winning bids were from current television broadcasters, whereas one of the other two initially successful bids was from company owned Kalogritsas, a bid that was voided when the latter could not provide the necessary letter of guarantee from a bank. The entire process was subsequently ruled as unconstitutional by a Greek high court, handing Tsipras and his coalition government a stinging defeat.
Kalogritsas testified four months after himself filing a lawsuit against the leadership of Athens-based and Lebanese-owned construction giant CCC. The latter has demanded that Kalogritsas' insolvent Toxotis construction firm refund three million euros that its attorneys say were loaned to Kalogritsas' company.
Conversely, Kalogritsas' defense maintains that the money was a down payment for a sub-contract he was awarded, and one linked with the construction of a shopping mall in the UAE by CCC.
At the same time, and in a serious allegation directly aimed at Pappas, the former leftist minister, Kalogritsas claims that the money was part of an agreement between the minister and CCC to establish a new television station that would be pro-SYRIZA and pro-government.
In fact, also according to reports, Kalogritsas claimed in his testimony that the ex-minister told him he didn't need to put up any of his own capital, but only to "lend his name", whereas SYRIZA had secured a credit line of 25 million euros to create and operate a television station. The three million euros loaned by CCC, however, was to cover the three-million-euro letter of guarantee.
Finally, in echoing his previous public statements, he said that when CCC backed out from the agreement, Pappas told him to use the three million euros already received to finance a left-leaning newspaper and website, which would be pro-government and pro-SYRIZA.
Kalogritsas appeared as the inaugural publisher of the Athens Sunday weekly Documento, before soon completely disengaging from the publishing company that printed the paper.