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The trial against former Defence Minister Akis Tsochatzopoulous is in its final stage. The pleading of the prosecutors started today after those of the defendants.

"It has been completely proved that the former Minister had received bribes related to the arms supplies. He knew and accepted the fact that the large suppliers of weapons systems would burden the Greek people with the payment of these bribes," prosecutor Georgia Adilini said at the beginning of her pleading.

She said that "no one is able to refute" the testimony of Akis Tsochatzopoulous’ cousin Nikos Zigras who is also a defendant in the same case. In his pleading, he identified Dinos Michailidis, former Minister of Interior of Cyprus, as the carrier of the briefcases with dirty money, who had passed them directly to Tsochatzopoulous.

According to the prosecutor, Tsochatzopoulous had received in the form of bribery 10% from the deal for the purchase of Russian TOR M1 missile systems totalling 850 million euro, or about 81 million euro. The prosecutor said in justification of these calculations that 10% of the 40% of the money paid in advance as compensation, or 25 million euro, had been transferred to the former minister’s bank account.

"Akis Tsochatzopoulous had repeatedly received bribes which had been subsequently turned into property of his family members," said Georgia Adilini. She added that, as proven by the judicial records of the German court and the report of the service combating financial crime, the bribes had been obtained to the detriment of the interests of the Greek state. In her words, the illegal payments had been included in the contracts by fictitiously inflating the amounts of the compensations.

In relation to three of the properties which, as shown by documents, had been purchased by offshore companies, the prosecutor stated that the beneficiary was again defendant Areti Tsochatzopoulous, the former minister’s daughter.

"A direct fault has been established due to kinship ties with Akis Tsochatzopoulous and due to the use of intermediaries. The purchase of these properties does not match the income of Areti Tsochatzopoulous," said the prosecutor.