Papandreou Ordered to Face Trial in Greece

Dismissing claims of innocence by former Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou, the Greek Parliament early today ordered Papandreou to face criminal charges of influence peddling and accepting huge bribes at the head of a government that gorged on corruption.

After two days of emotional debate, the Parliament by a party line vote of 165 to 121 accepted the findings of a commission of inquiry that portrayed Papandreou as the willing accomplice of corrupt officials who conspired with a prominent banker to loot the state of more than $200 million.

Four of Papandreou’s former ministers also were stripped of their legislative immunity and ordered to face charges. One, who had served as deputy prime minister and justice minister, was accused of accepting a $2-million bribe in the same banking scandal.

The action had been anticipated. Still, the accusation of criminal misconduct by a former prime minister and the scale of corruption outlined in the parliamentary findings are unprecedented in Greece or modern Western Europe.

Papandreou, a 70-year-old Socialist who ruled Greece for eight years until he lost a reelection bid last June, came to Parliament on Wednesday to dispute the process against him. His wife, Dimitra, accompanied him.

“I personally accept my share of political responsibility for the scandal. . . . The criminal side of the case does not touch me,” Papandreou asserted. “The accusations against me are the product of the sick imagination of a fugitive swindler and all of those who are hiding behind him. During all my years of political life in Greece, never--but never--were my morals in doubt.”

But Papandreou’s protestations made no impact on the 300-seat chamber, which is controlled by an unusual alliance of conservatives and Communists. After the elections in June produced no clear winner, the historic foes formed a short-lived coalition government for the single purpose of trying those responsible for the massive corruption.

With time at a premium, investigators chose to pursue a handful of the several dozen scandals that marred the latter years of Papandreou’s rule. One informed source suggested that if the banking scandal alone were fully investigated in all of its ramifications, about 150 defendants would likely face criminal or civil charges.

As parliamentary debate moved toward a climax, Greek police conceded Wednesday they had no leads in the terrorist murder Tuesday of Pavlos Bakoyannis, a spokesman for the conservative New Democracy party and son-in-law of Constantine Mitsotakis, the party leader. After an emergency Cabinet meeting on terrorism, Prime Minister Tzannis Tzannetakis announced an imminent shake-up in the command structure of the national police.

Last week, Parliament ordered Papandreou to trial on charges he masterminded a network of illegal phone taps for political purposes. If that could be accepted as gamesmanship by Greeks inured to hardball politics, the banking scandal accusations spoke more directly of greed and above-the-law arrogance.

“Our decision to prosecute is necessary to cleanse the hubris,” leftist deputy Stelios Nestor said during the debate.

A 12-member investigating commission concluded that Papandreou had accepted more than $700,000 in bribes as part of a $200-million embezzlement from the Bank of Crete. The bank’s former owner, 34-year-old George Koskotas, was an overnight sensation in Greece and a prominent Papandreou supporter until the bottom dropped out of his financial empire last year. Koskotas fled, was arrested in the United States on a Greek fugitive warrant and is fighting extradition from a Salem, Mass., jail cell.

Koskotas claims Papandreou blackmailed him into embezzling millions by skimming interest to state enterprises with large deposits in the Bank of Crete. The money was used to finance Papandreou’s failed bid for a third term, Koskotas alleges.

Parliamentary investigators, who interviewed a dozen witnesses, including Koskotas, charged that Papandreou used his influence to direct state funds to deposit at the Bank of Crete. Papandreou was bribed to head off a central bank audit of Bank of Crete books, the investigators’ report alleges.

Papandreou, a former economics professor at UC Berkeley, also is accused of accepting a bribe to arrange the vastly reduced payment of back taxes by a Greek businessman, thereby clearing the way for the businessman to sell an Athens hotel to Koskotas.

Parliament also voted to file charges against a former finance minister in a tax reduction case and against a former economics minister for allegedly being aware of ongoing scandals but failing to act against them. A former undersecretary of industry is accused of accepting bribes to allow the illegal construction of facilities for a publishing empire that Koskotas also controlled.

For Papandreou, who had heart bypass surgery last year, conviction could mean a sentence of up to 20 years. Legal proceedings triggered by the parliamentary vote will take at least a year, however.