Former minister and high-profile New Democracy (ND) party deputy Adonis Georgiadis on Wednesday said he has formally filed a lawsuit against Swiss pharmaceutical multinational Novartis, charging that the company "remains silent over the charges against me".
Georgiadis has long threatened to take the legal action, in defense, as he says, against mudslinging by the poll-trailing Tsipras government to implicate him in alleged kickbacks by Novartis' Greek subsidiary.
The outspoken MP previously served as a health minister in the Samaras coalition government before 2015, when the current ruling party, leftist SYRIZA, was in the main opposition.
Georgiadis demands two million euros in damages from the Swiss multinational.
"I will defend, to the very end, my honor and reputation," he said, while telling a television current affairs program that Novartis remains silent because "it's found an understanding with the (current Greek) government... During my tenure (as health minister), it (Novartis Greece) posted damages, returning to profits during the Xanthos-Polakis era," he said, referring to the current minister and alternate health ministers in the Cabinet.
Moreover, he again scoffed at recent conclusions of a parliamentary committee of inquiry set up to probe alleged health sector corruption (before 2015), a majority of whose members belong to the two coalition partners, SYRIZA and its junior coalition partner, the small right-wing AN.EL party.
Georgiadis promised to donate whatever damages, if he is vindicated, to charity.
