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Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 16-07-13
CONTENTS
[01] Appeals Prosecutor's office blames both foreign ministry and court
for problems in Siemens trial
[01] Appeals Prosecutor's office blames both foreign ministry and court
for problems in Siemens trial
Problems in the high-profile OTE-Siemens trial are due to foreign
ministry's delay in translating some documents and the court's decision
not to reject the objections of the foreign defendants, sources of the
Appeals Prosecutor's office said on Wednesday.
"We delivered the summons to the defendants for the Siemens case without
the full translation of the foreign ministry to halt the period of lapse,"
the sources said, responding to severe criticism over the indefinite
interruption of the trial announced by the court on Tuesday.
The so-called cash-for-contract case concerns an investigation into
claims that the German company bribed politicians to win a contract
Greek telecoms company OTE for the digitalisation of the company's call
centers. The suspects include former Siemens and OTE executives, who are
accused of money laundering, offering and accepting bribes and acting
as accomplices in the above acts. On Tuesday, the trial was postponed
for an indefinite period because the court accepted the objections of
the defendants who claimed that the charge sheet had not been translated
into French and German, which renders it invalid.
The same sources said the foreign ministry didn't deliver in time all
the passages of the decree before the trial started in November 2015,
but were delivered on May 2016, when the trial had already started. They
added that Appeals Prosecutor's office send the summons to the defendants
without waiting for the French and German translations to stop it from
being statute-barred.
Commenting on the court's decision, the Appeals Prosecutor's office said
it didn't expect it to accept the objections raised by the defendants
and were "absolutely certain" these claims would have been rejected,
as there is a precedent with the trial of Turkish nationals charged with
terrorism, whose similar claims had been dismissed.
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