Prosecutor proposes that ex-SDOE chief be cleared over Lagarde list

A prosecutor on Friday called for a former head of the Financial Crime Squad (SDOE), Yiannis Diotis, to be cleared of any wrongdoing in the handling of the so-called Lagarde list of wealthy Greeks with Swiss bank deposits, named after former French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, now head of the International Monetary Fund.

According to Calliope Dagianta, Diotis’s actions actually saved the electronic files with details of the 2,059 depositors. Diotis has admitted to making a copy of the Lagarde list on to a memory stick in 2011 from a flash drive handed to him by former finance minister Giorgos Papaconstantinou before handing the stick to the latter’s successor Evangelos Venizelos.

Dagianta added that “only a naive person” would believe that Diotis tried to obstruct an investigation into possible tax evasion by depositors on the list. A court is to decide on Diotis’s fate on October 24.