Former Siemens executive denies bribing state officials
Testifying before a court in Athens on Wednesday, Prodromos Mavridis, former telecommunications manager for Siemens Hellas, denied having paid politicians from a slush fund to secure state contracts.
Mavridis claimed that the managing board of the parent company in Germany had tried to saddle him with responsibility for the fund that had been “stationed” in Switzerland.
He said he has been cleared in six court court cases of a range of charges from bribery to breach of faith in Germany and Switzerland.
The bulk of Mavridis’s testimony was devoted to the so-called 8002 contract, for Siemens to digitize the network of OTE telecom. He said OTE did not suffer losses because of the contract.
The trial of dozens of suspects in the Siemens cash-for-contracts scandal has been repeatedly postponed since its launch in 2016 as OTE and the Greek state seek damages.
The case came to court 10 years after authorities launched a probe.
