New Democracy is lambasting Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos over his refusal to publicly respond to allegations that an advisor of his requested a bribe in order to pay a legally mandated reward to a citizen who reported and helped lead to the successful prosecution of a major tax evasion case.

Livanos was the main prosecution witness in a case leading to the conviction of a businessman active in the real estate sector named Ioannis Karouzos, and Livanos was theoretically entitled to a 7 million euro reward, of which the minister’s advisor allegedly demanded a fifty percent kickback.

The law has been passed but has not been activated by the necessary ministerial decisions, and the alleged kickback was requested to put the law in effect.

“Mr. Tsakalotos for the 15th consecutive day is avoiding giving answers to the charges of businessman Iosif Livanos, that his advisor Alexis Pouliasis requested a 1.8 million euro kickback,” New Democracy spokesperson Maria Spyraki said today.

Spyrakis maintained that New Democracy is posing a specific question. “If Mr. Tsakalotos believes that a plot has been set up against him, why has he not yet filed suit against him in a court of law?”
In an open letter to PM Alexis Tsipras last week, Livanos demanded that he be sued by the advisor if he is indeed slandering him.