Furor continues over exemption of MPs from panel

Political tensions over the Novartis investigation simmered on Wednesday after former premier and SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras wrote to Parliament Speaker Konstantinos Tasoulas to complain about the exemption of leftist MPs Pavlos Polakis and Dimitris Tzanakopoulos from a House committee probing alleged meddling in the investigation.
Describing the two former ministers' exclusion from the panel as "illegal" and a "brute deprivation of their parliamentary rights," Tsipras called on Tasoulas to revoke the decision which, he claimed, upset "parliamentary order."
His intervention came after the committee tasked with probing whether former alternate justice minister Dimitris Papangelopoulos sought to influence the Novartis probe decided to eject Tzanakopoulos and Polakis due to their status as witnesses in the investigation, which, the panel deemed, constituted a potential...