Antonis Samaras

Greece's parliament elected former Council of State head Katerina Sakellaropoulou as the country's next president on Wednesday, a largely ceremonial role that also brings with it limited political powers.

A special parliamentary committee tasked with probing possible discrepancies in the declarations of wealth of political personnel decided on Thursday to consign to the archive a file on Stavros Papastavrou, an ex-aide of former conservative prime minister Antonis Samaras.

In testimony before a Supreme Court prosecutor on Thursday, a former protected witness in the Novartis investigation claimed that he came under pressure from Greek corruption prosecutors to testify against politicians in the absence of any incriminating evidence.

Greece's former corruption prosecutor Eleni Raikou, who quit her post in 2017 over alleged political interference in the Novartis bribery investigation, on Monday accused former Alternate Justice Minister Dimitris Papangelopoulos of a series of interventions in her work. 

Greece's former corruption prosecutor Eleni Raikou, who quit her post in 2017 over alleged political interference in the Novartis bribery investigation, was to testify on Monday in connection with a probe into the possible mishandling of the original investigation. 

It remained unclear on Thursday whether the special Parliament committee which will be set up in early October to probe the possible mishandling of the alleged Novartis bribery case by the previous government will deem then that it is indeed the appropriate body to examine the case or if it will proceed to examine the testimonies of key figures and issue a finding.

The Supreme Court's prosecutor's office sent to Parliament on Friday a file on the ongoing inquiry into the handling of the Novartis case, so that MPs can decide whether to lift the immunity of politicians named. 

Supreme Court deputy prosecutor Ioannis Angelis claimed, during more than five hours of testimony on Thursday, that an unnamed politician dubbed "Rasputin" played a pivotal role in influencing the course of an investigation into the alleged bribery of politicians by the Swiss drugs manufacturer Novartis. 

Former PASOK minister Evangelos Venizelos on Wednesday slammed the Novartis bribery case brought against 10 high-ranking politicians under the previous administration as a "violation of the institutions."

An investigation into the claims of politicians implicated in the Novartis bribery scandal that the case was fabricated and politically motivated moved another step forward on Tuesday with the testimony of former conservative prime minister Antonis Samaras.