Panayiotis Brakoumatsos

Supreme Court authorities will rule Monday on the status of the witness protection regime for key whistleblowers who have been summoned to testify by the parliamentary committee conducting a preliminary inquiry into the handling of the Novartis bribery case by the previous administration. 

An investigating magistrate on Tuesday issued two arrest warrants against two Turkish nationals in connection with the organization and funding behind the smuggling of 2 tons of heroin into Greece aboard the Noor 1 cargo ship in 2014.

The two Turks had been mentioned during testimony by Makis Yiannousakis who is serving a life sentence in connection with the heroin haul.

The probe by judicial authorities into allegations by a convicted drug smuggler that Defense Minister Panos Kammenos tried to pressure him into testifying against prominent businessman Vangelis Marinakis, has been shelved.

The coalition and opposition parties are set for a head-on collision in Parliament on Friday, when MPs will debate and vote on whether to hold an inquiry into Defense Minister Panos Kammenos's telephone conversations with a convict in the Noor 1 drug smuggling case.

It seem unlikely that the leader of the ultranationalist Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS) party, Giorgos Karatzaferis, will face bribery charges after it was revealed that two middlemen in an arms deal paid 1.6 million euros to his offshore company, sources have told Kathimerini.