Editorial Ta Nea: Gang

The first reaction was one of unease, which gave way to silence, but with the torrent of revelations continuing, the silence did not last long.

It did not produce an accounting, but rather cheap excuses. The man who used to claim to represent the PM’s office became a former friend, a private individual, or just a wheeler dealer.

There are no cheap excuses without lies. The minister who was the friend of the said individual (Manolis Petsitis), Digital Policy Minister Nikos Pappas, has repeatedly been caught lying about the affair. He and the government do not wish to reveal things but rather to cover them up.

Hence, the opposition is right in underlining that this dubious case is not the Petsitis scandal but the Tsipras-Pappas scandal.
Did Petsitis have the power to obstruct the ongoing investigation being conducted by the independent Anti-Money Laundering Authority? Certainly he could not do it on his own. Might it be that he had secured for himself diplomatic immunity which applied whenever he traveled abroad? Again the answer is no. Could he have held contacts as an envoy of the PM without getting anyone’s permission? That would be impossible.

The yarn is already beginning to unravel. The answers to questions about activities from Athens to Nicosia to Caracas will be given.
For whom was Petsitis working? For whose sake was he enriching himself? One could say that for the sake of this man the country’s first left-wing government destroyed the last shred of its self-declared “moral advantage”.

Yet, beyond that, something even worse is happening.

This man and his political patrons made the Greek government look like a gang.