Kokkalis prosecutor: ‘No one pressured me’
The prosecutor who last month filed six criminal charges against business tycoon Socrates Kokkalis told an Athenian newspaper that he had not come under pressure from any quarter during his investigation and that he had worked in absolute secrecy. «No leaks came from me. I informed the chief prosecutor on the day I filed the charges,» Dimitris Papangelopoulos told Eleftherotypia. His comments, published yesterday, were in response to questions by reporter Gianna Papadakou, who also noted, «I am not sure he was fully acquiescent to their publication.» Papangelopoulos declared: «I came under no pressure, no intervention. In fact I have never been pressured in any case that I have handled. It is my conviction that judicial officials cannot be pressured, seeing as their institutional and personal independence has been confirmed. A judge follows only his conscience.» Papangelopoulos rejected criticism that the charges against Kokkalis (which include espionage, fraud, money-laundering and bribery) had harmed the business climate. «The economic life of this country and any other where the law functions should work in accordance with the principles established by the State. The only thing the prosecutor can do is to step in when it appears these principles are being violated,» he said.
