Novartis case witness protection lift ‘a day of vindication’
Minister of Health Adonis Georgiadis, who is now able to take legal action against protected witnesses in a bribery case involving Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis, doctors and public officials as a result of a decision Thursday by the Financial Prosecutor’s Office to lift the protection status of the witnesses, described the development as “a day of vindication” with a post on X.
The minister went on to write: “The key issue here is to reveal who orchestrated this, as it’s impossible they came up with such monstrous lies on their own.”
Besides Georgiadis, former prime minister Antonis Samaras, the current Bank of Greece Governor Yiannis Stournaras, and former minister Andreas Loverdos may all now take legal action against the protected witnesses.
All four had appealed against the protection of two witnesses, given the code names “Ekaterini Kelesi” and “Maximos Sarafis.”
The Novartis case has involved probes into allegations that doctors and public officials had accepted kickbacks from the company in a period spanning 2006 to 2015.
