Former Novartis executive claims to have met top SYRIZA officials
A key witness in the inquiry regarding an alleged bribery scandal involving Novartis yesterday claimed to have met with top officials of leftist SYRIZA before the party came to power in 2015 during his second deposition before the parliamentary committee probing possible political interference in the investigation.
Konstantinos Frouzis, the former vice president and general manager of Novartis Greece, reportedly claimed to have met with Alexis Tsipras and Nikos Pappas among others, Skai reported.
He said there was “nothing wrong” with those meetings, noting that he had met several other SYRIZA officials before the party came to power.
The former Novartis executive reportedly said he met “several times” with former health minister Andreas Xanthos and three times with former energy minister Giorgos Stathakis.
He claimed never to have met privately with former conservative premier Antonis Samaras, one of the 10 politicians implicated, but not incriminated, in the original probe.
On his first day of testimony, Frouzis had claimed that he had been pressed by corruption prosecutor Eleni Touloupaki to implicate politicians named in the probe.
