The spokesperson for PASOK – Movement for Change, Kostas Tsoukalas, launched a fierce attack on the government over the wiretapping scandal while speaking on OPEN TV’s “Tora Mazi” program.
Mr. Tsoukalas argued that the government owes an apology to PASOK President Nikos Androulakis for “the propaganda and the false narrative” surrounding the wiretapping scandal.
According to the relevant press release, the PASOK spokesperson stated that the testimony of former EYP Director Themistoklis Demiris before Parliament overturned, as he put it, everything the government had claimed in recent years.
“For four years, they told Nikos Androulakis, ‘Come, we’ll brief you verbally,’ while Mr. Demiris said he had no idea of the reasons for the surveillance and that he did not find a physical file containing the request,” he argued.
He added that Demiris’s statements “suggest that there may even have been a verbal order to conduct surveillance.”
References to Dendias, Georgiadis, and Hatzidakis
Mr. Tsoukalas further argued that the issue concerns not only the PASOK president but also other political figures who are alleged to have been placed under surveillance.
“This may also concern Georgiadis, Dendias, Hatzidakis, and many other figures who were members of the Cabinet,” he noted.
At the same time, he emphasized that“nothing was done ex officio,” arguing that all developments in the case arose following complaints filed by Nikos Androulakis.
The 2022 investigative committee was “rigged”
The PASOK spokesperson also returned to the topic of the 2022 investigative committee on wiretapping, arguing that the process was “rigged.”
As he noted, the decision of the Single-Judge Misdemeanor Court includes testimonies stating that witnesses appeared before the committee with “cheat sheets” and predetermined questions from New Democracy MPs.
“It was an investigation with a rigged deck,” he commented, while questioning why the government has now opted for a different parliamentary procedure requiring a threshold of 151 MPs instead of 120.
Mr. Tsoukalas also accused Justice Minister George Floridisof lying about the shared surveillance targets of Predator and the EYP. As he argued, the shared targets are not 11 but 27.
Comments on Karistianou and Tsipras
Referring to Maria Karistianou’s new political venture, the PASOK spokesperson assessed that “it strikes at the soft underbelly of the New Democracy audience, which is losing on multiple fronts.”
Regarding Alexis Tsipras and SYRIZA’s criticism of PASOK, he questioned why PASOK is being criticized for pursuing a “lone path”when, as he noted, Mr. Tsipras himself is adopting a similar political stance.
In closing, Mr. Tsoukalas argued that there are currently two distinct political plans for the country: “either a continuation of New Democracy’s policies or a progressive government with PASOK at its core, and we have a progressive government with a different character.”