Papandreou Must Stand Trial, Greek Parliament Rules

Former Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou, the one-time populist hero who ruled Greece for eight years, has been ordered to stand trial on charges of illegally bugging the phones of friend and foe alike.

The 300-seat Parliament voted Wednesday night that Papandreou, 70, should be tried by a special court of senior judges over allegations of widespread telephone bugging while his Socialist administration was in power.

The Parliament, controlled since July by an unprecedented conservative-Communist coalition government, voted 167 to 2 to charge Papandreou with violating Greek citizens’ constitutional right to privacy in telephone calls.

It also voted 169 to 2 to charge Papandreou with ordering the state telephone company and the intelligence service to bug the phones of politicians, journalists, members of his own party and even personal friends.

Parliament is due to vote on a separate case next week in which Papandreou and four of his top ministers are accused of complicity in a $200-million bank embezzlement scandal.

In the June 18 elections, voters handed him a crushing defeat and his PASOK party was cut from 161 to 125 seats in the Parliament.