Former Greek Defence Minister Yannos Papantoniou said on Monday that he would take legal action against an allegation that French defence group Thales was prepared to pay him an illegal sales commission.
Papantoniou, now a Socialist opposition member of Parliament, was responding to allegations made by a former executive at Thales, Michel Josserand.
Thales has denied a series of corruption allegations made by Josserand, and has begun defamation proceedings aginst him and the Le Monde newspaper which first ran an interview with Josserand.
Papantoniou said in a statement: ”I have asked [a] well-known French law firm to immediately take legal court means to protect the truth and my person.”
The French newspaper Liberation has reported that Josserand testified in May in 2002-2003 that Thales had set aside a commission fee for the then Greek defence minister during negotiations for a multimillion-euro security contract related to the Athens 2004 Olympics.
Josserand, who has since left Thales, is currently under investigation over a Nice tramway contract awarded during his tenure at the company.
Papantoniou was defence minister from July 2003 to March 2004.
”I went to Greece on several occasions in 2002 and 2003, and held meetings with Thales Greece chairman Mr R,” Josserand told investigating judges in Nice, according to court documents seen by Liberation.
”He told me that we had to plan for a 7-10% commission fee for the Greek defence minister,” he added.
Papantoniou dismissed the allegation as ”despicable slander by a former employee held on corruption charges”.
In the reported testimony, Josserand also implicated former Prime Minister Costas Simitis and former public order minister Michalis Chrysohoides in the security contract deal, which Thales, acting as part of a multinational consortium, lost to a rival group headed by United States contractors SAIC.
”I was told that we lost this contract because we aimed too low,” Josserand said, according to Liberation.
”The Americans aimed for the public order minister and the prime minister,” he said.
On September 30, former minister Chrysohoides said that he had never been involved in the security contract deal.
”Either this man is addled in the brain, or he is carrying out orders with sinister purposes,” he said in a statement.
Former PM Simitis has made no response to the allegations. – Sapa-AFP