Greek publisher and journalists Kostas Vaxevanis was briefly detained after the wife of Greece’s central banker Yannis Sournaras filed a lawsuit against him for slander. A day earlier, Vaxevanis newspaper had alleged that Stournaras’ wife was using her husbands’ influence to acquire state contracts for the public relations company.
A judge ordered the arrest of Greek journalist and published Kostas Vaxevanis after the wife of Greece’s central banker Yannis Sournaras filed a lawsuit against him. Stavroula Nikolopoulou-Stournaras filed the law suit after Vaxevanis Sunday newspaper Documento published a front page story with the title “The Stournaras Family – Big Love with Pharmaceutitcla Companies.”
Documento claimed among others that Nikolopoulou’s public relations company received state money to organize medical conferences without a public tender.
Nikolopoulou turned to authorities and asked for his arrest, saying the report was “false and defamatory” and in the context of general attacks against Yannis Stournaras. In a statement she wrote “it demeans me as a professional when he alleges I use my husband’s influence to acquire jobs.”
Τhe article in Documento accused Yannis Stournaras of “following the cheap method of ‘lecturing’ at conferences organized by his spouse and sponsored by pharmaceutical industries, without honoring his institutional role or keeping up appearances.” It also alleged that Stournaras’s family “has ties to” former defense minister Yannos Papantoniou who is under investigation for alleged kickbacks in connection with defense deals he signed.
Monday noon, publisher Kostas Vaxebanis and journalist Vassilis Andrianopoulos voluntarily went to the police station in Kallithea suburb of south Athens. They were briefly detained and later released.
The prosecutor ordered preliminary investigation into Nikolopoulou’s claims.
In a statement uploaded on Documento website and written also in English, Kostas Vaxevanis said:
“MS Stavroula Nikolopoulou-Stournara, Bank of Greece Governor’s Yannis Stournaras spouse, obviously representing the «family interests» that are described in «Documento» newspaper”s last issue (9 April, 2017) sued me demanding my immediate arrest.
It seems that the Stournara family has ties with Greek former Minister of Finance Yannos Papantoniou, not only via contiguous plots of land, friendship and cohabitation in the domes of power, but also via similar practices.
Our newspaper «Documento» reported that Yannis Stournaras follows the cheap method of «lecturing» at conferences organized by his spouse and sponsored by pharmaceutical industries, without honoring his institutional role or keeping up appearances. Mr Stournaras did not even give an answer about the disclosures.
Instead, the family decided to sue me and chose the violent path of arrest.
Thus they try to achieve two goals. First, to cover themselves in the eyes of the public and of the European institutions that supervise them. Secondly, they aim to scare me. They cannot even think that hands can touch them, they consider themselves as permanent power bodies, they take for granted that their personal interests are the interests of Greece.
No matter what methods they use, Mr and Mrs Stournaras will have to answer about:
– the 400.000 euros Mrs Stavroula Nikolopoulou-Stournara received from the Hellenic Center for Disease Control & Prevention (HCDCP) when Minister of Health was Adonis Georgiadis (2013 – 2014), without a public tender for her «conferences»
– the scientific «credibility» of these conferences, where professors with ties to Novartis industry were taking part.
– the fact that Mr Stournaras lectures about pharmaceutical expenditure in Greece on the basis that, among all public expenditures in this unlucky country, he believes that only the pharmaceutical market in Greece is small and should augment.
– the «market researches» conducted by family businesses on a mandate from pharmaceutical industries and by paying money to doctors.
The Stournaras family does not struggle in a legal battle, as it pretends. Mr and Mrs Stournaras struggle for their survival. They try to cover the way they act and operate.
I ask for your support, always having in mind what George Orwell once said : «Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. The rest is public relations»
Kostas Vaxevanis,
Greek journalist, publisher and editor of the «Documento» weekly newspaper and «Hot Doc» magazine. Athens, Monday 10th 2017″
Ruling party SYRIZA issued a statement saying that the Documento “article raises some critical questions about the public health sector. Instead of answering the questions, Nikolopoulou files lawsuits,” SYRIZA notes and stresses that her lawsuit is directly “against journalism and freedom of press.”
In 2012, Kostas Vaxevanis faced charges for publishing more than 2,000 name of suspected Greek tax evaders whose named were in the so-called Lagarde-List. He was acquitted.
