Ex-Prime Minister of Greece Falls Ill After Debate

Former Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou was taken to a hospital Tuesday after joining in a bruising debate on Greece’s shattered economy and learning that his co-defendant in a bank scandal was in jail pending trial.

Papandreou, 71, who dominated politics during eight years of Socialist rule from 1981 to 1989, has led a vigorous fight against the conservative government’s economic austerity plan and sweeping free-market reforms.

Shortly after the debate in Parliament with his archrival for the past 25 years, conservative Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis, he was rushed to the hospital with breathing problems and an irregular heartbeat.

Doctors said later his condition was satisfactory.

Papandreou has a history of health problems and underwent heart surgery in London in September, 1988. His poor health was a factor in his election defeat in June, 1989.

Papandreou’s hospitalization Tuesday came hours after he learned that his former justice minister, Agamemnon Koutsoyorgas, had been jailed pending trial on charges of complicity in a $200-million bank scandal in 1988.

Both Papandreou and Koutsoyorgas were charged in September, 1989, in the scandal, in which interest payments on state funds were embezzled at the private Bank of Crete.