Prosecutor claims politician meddled in Novartis and other probes

Supreme Court deputy prosecutor Ioannis Angelis claimed, during more than five hours of testimony on Thursday, that an unnamed politician dubbed "Rasputin" played a pivotal role in influencing the course of an investigation into the alleged bribery of politicians by the Swiss drugs manufacturer Novartis. 

During his deposition before another Supreme Court deputy prosecutor, Evangelos Zacharis, who has been tasked with probing claims that the original Novartis probe was subject to political intervention, Angelis claimed that the politician not only interfered in the Novartis probe but in other judicial investigations handled by the country's corruption prosecutors too. 

He did not identify "Rasputin," who has, however, been named as former alternate justice minister Dimitris Papangelopoulos by others including former conservative premier Antonis Samaras. (Samaras is...