Ex-minister Avgenakis apologizes after alleged assault on airport employee
Former conservative minister Lefteris Avgenakis apologized on Wednesday after footage emerged of him allegedly assaulting an airport employee.
The incident is said to have taken place at Athens International Airport on Monday. Footage, which circulated on Wednesday following a complaint by the airport workers’ union, shows Avgenakis verbally confronting and then assaulting the employee at his desk, though there is no audio.
Reports suggest that the dispute erupted after the 51-year-old Iraklio New Democracy MP was denied boarding on a flight to his native Crete after boarding had been completed.
In a statement posted on social media on Wednesday, Avgenakis said he was “sincerely sorry and apologize for the tension and disturbance caused recently at the airport with an airline employee in my attempt to board my flight to Iraklio.”
However, the MP sought to downplay the affair as a “verbal incident.”
“Indeed, there was an incident of verbal tension with the company employee, as he did not allow me to board, claiming that boarding had been completed, while I could see with my own eyes that passengers were still in the boarding bridge,” he said.
“The employee repeatedly refused to allow me the opportunity to communicate with his supervisor or another responsible person from the airline as a last effort to manage to travel on time, which led me to try to take the phone from his hands to speak myself. However, the incident remained only at the level of disagreement and verbal tension.”
He expressed his surprise “at the exaggerations and inaccuracies circulating in recent media reports about an incident of ‘savage beating,’ ‘fainting,’ and ‘physical assault’ on my part.”
Speaking on Skai TV later on Wednesday, Avgenakis described the incident as “a bad moment” and stated that since he had issued a “public apology” to the employee, there was “no consideration” of resigning.
Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis condemned the incident, saying that “do-you-know-who-I-am? attitudes are not acceptable by the prime minister.” House Speaker Konstantinos Tasoulas demanded an explanation from Avgenakis, who is also a former vice president of Parliament.
