Codes, middlemen and dirty jobs

By Georgia Linardou

This Ordinance is not the best for the three defendants of the case that has remained known as "bribery" and refers to last December when the then President of Aglaia Kyriakou hospital, member of New Democracy, Ch. Tompouloglou arrested when received a yellow envelope containing 25,000 euros and was the result of extortion, according to police and judicial authorities.

The trial, however, has not been set yet, but the decree was completed a few days ago and is now expected to set the trial date.

And if last December was nightmarish for Ch.Tompouloglou, this December is not better. Last year he spoke "for conspiracy". Today, however, he is silent. And not only he, but also the member of the Central Political Committee of PASOK, until recently Head of Sector Health of the party, Stephanos Michalakos pediatrician, director of the Department of Growth and Development in the same hospital. This man heard his name to be connected to the case in December and hastened to the TV channels to express his surprise about it. The fact was that Mr. Tompouloglou, when he was speaking with "mediators" to extract money from a company, reported Michalakos as a partner.

If those talks would not have been recorded, the story might have been different. However, the Department of prosecution of extortion had another view. Ch.Tompouloglou without knowing that he had been recorded, (and this is important), tried to secure a significant amount of money for him and for one more person, in order to proceed a deal with a company that was responsible for advertising the program of the hospital for Children's Obesity. The scientific director of that program was St. Michalakos.

About a year after his public expression of "surprise" for his involvement, the Athens Appeals Council considers that his claim is "totally unfounded since, if had not been organized jointly with Ch.Tompouloglou the plan to force Mr....to pay the cash benefits, by threatening that otherwise they will not accept his company, then Ch.Tompouloglou would not mentioned in his talks, with Mr. ..., the name of a person who would get a share of the proceeds of the transaction, since if St.Michalakos was not involved Ch.Tompouloglou would fear that the plan would be revealed to others ..."

As is clear from the decree, the first time that was heard the "threat" that they will not chose this company, was on November 28 2013, one month before the reveal of the story. That day, Ch.Tompouloglou had a meeting at the hospital, with a scientific collaborator of St. Michalakos.

Some days later, Ch. Tompouloglou told to the 'intermediary': "I'm not an asshole, to assign jobs for one hundred and ninety thousand Euros and not to take anything; they will give a share to me and the adviser of the Ministry named Michalakos, with whom commissioned the company the issue of child obesity or I will denounce the contest and I will destroy them. But I do not want any communication with them, they might set me up; I want you to deliver this message."
According to the multipage decree, the former president of the hospital does not mention one or two times the name of S. Michalakos as a partner on this story, but several.

S. Michalakos as a coordinator-director of the project team against obesity, was responsible for monitoring, receiving and drafting minutes of receipt of the work delivered by the company (which suffered the extortion). "Even if the provided services were accepted, would need an approval by the Board of the Hospital, to the payment of the remuneration of the Company, and Michalakos was beginning to carry to Ch.Tompouloglou the complaints for pattern of outsourced work, but this was ostensible", states, among other, the Ordinance.

The recording of the conversation of Ch.Tompouloglou with the man who was intervening on behalf of the company in order to reveal the blackmail, "was properly" validated by order of the Prosecutor of the Athens First Instance no. 234 / 2014 Ordinance of the Council of Appeals of Athens. And finally is an official item.

For the third person of the story, Chr.Triantafyllou, was revealed today that the day of his arrest along with Ch.Tompouloglou, they found in his apartment a small quantity of drugs for personal use, according to the investigative research and a pepper spray.

Similar investigations have been made in the house of Ch.Tompouloglou. They found passbooks which revealed that Tompouloglou along with Chr.Triantafyllou had three common accounts in the National Bank "in which traded very large sums from October 2008".

For all three defendants, it is stated in the Ordinance that "are persons who commit extortion professionally and by habit."

On December 20, 2013, four days before his arrest, Ch.Tompouloglou said in the "middleman" (Anastasios Gkiati, president of the union workers at Alpha Bank), among other things that "the doctor (Michalakos) is pressing and he propose to Mr.... to give them thirty thousand ... Finally that if everything would turned out well, everyone would eat with golden spoons..."

As shown by the investigation of the judiciary "the defendants acting under the plan, which they shared and pre-agreed, took special precautions of avoiding any telephone or in person communication with the President and the CEO of the company ..., carrying their requirements only through third parties, with whom were chatting in codes and they made sure to use Chr.Triantafyllou, accused civil servant, to collect the requested sum of money, who was in a near point and received the envelope with the money from the C. Tompouloglou ... "

However, criminal proceedings had been initiated then, for the pediatrician St. Michalakos, but no investigation carried out in his bank accounts, at least as it appears from the evidence so far. In contrast with the direct persecution of Ch.Tompouloglou of the Hospital and his party, Michalakos stays put. And at the hospital and in his ... party. Without having serious knowledge of Civil Service Code, I wondering just what, a prosecution and indictment for criminal act, would mean in a simple civil servant...

This week, the legal service of Aglaia Kyriakou Children's Hospital has asked from the Prosecutor of Athens an official information on the referral of the physician Stephanos Michalakos, but got no answer. For that matter, intervened, according to exclusive information, the Health Minister M.Voridis who reportedly asked "dismissal of the doctor from the Hospital", at least according to his colleagues...