In a personal response to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the president of the Greek Left Alliance, Alexis Tsipras, issued a recorded statement.
In it, he said:
“Mr Mitsotakis asked today why I called him the high priest of corruption. He need only watch again the interviews given by his nephew, Mr Dimitriadis, who, until he took the fall for him, was the boss at the prime minister’s office.
Once again, though, he tried to smear me and make insinuations about me. This time, it was over a major reform: the comprehensive overhaul of the Penal Code, the first in the country since 1950.
So, to put an end to this charade, let me be clear:
As is customary, a wholesale reform of the Penal Code is drafted not by the government but by a large legislative drafting committee. That is what happened, with a committee made up of some of the country’s finest legal minds.
They drafted the code after years of preparatory work that began in 2010. They submitted their work to us, and we voted for it alongside other parties and MPs in June 2019. If he therefore believes that all of them, along with me, were cashing in IOUs, he is insulting not me but the country’s legal community.
He should produce evidence instead of slinging mud. Name names and give specifics.
That is what I did when he himself rushed to amend the new code in November 2019 to grant criminal immunity to bankers. Those IOUs had names attached to them. But whose IOUs did I cash in?
Mr Mitsotakis must now name names and give specifics. Otherwise, he should stop slinging mud and slandering me. Enough.”, the statement by the president of ELAS, Alexis Tsipras, concludes.