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A criminal investigation against unknown perpetrators accused of organizing an assassination of former Greek Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis has been started by the Athens regional prosecutor's office. It was the result of the months-long criminal investigation in connection with press publications in June 2012.

They cite as a source a document of the Russian secret services addressed to the Greek intelligence service. It mentioned the existence of an organized plan to murder Kostas Karamanlis for the energy policy pursued by his government.

According to the publications, the Russian secret services claim to have conducted counter observations and found a group of 20 people who followed the then Prime Minister of Greece. The document stated that they were members of foreign secret services.

The regional prosecutor Nikos Ornerakis, who conducted the preliminary investigation, has ordered the initiation of criminal prosecution of the following charges: "preparatory acts of high treason," "disrupting the normal functioning of government" and "depriving the Prime Minister from exercising the power given to him by the Constitution."

Sources cited by the Greek news agency ANA argued that under the preliminary investigation, officers and senior representatives of the Greek intelligence services, Greek police officers and members of the security of the former prime minister have testified.

The case file includes the preparatory acts among which are mentioned the heavy riots of December 2008 that followed the murder of the 15-year-old student Alexandros Grigoropoulos shot by a police officer.

The press publications surprised almost no one in Greece, because for a long time there has been information shared informally in different circles that Kostas Karamanlis had been fired at outside his home in the port town of Rafina. Russian special agents rescued him and the perpetrators were members of US secret services. Another rumour states that his car was ambushed at one of the crossroads at the exit from Athens to Rafina, but he managed to escape.