Novartis

Former conservative premier Antonis Samaras said Tuesday that a decision by the corruption prosecutor's office to shelve the case against him concerning his alleged involvement in the Novartis case signals the beginning of an investigation into the "real, serious and dark scandal" surrounding the inquiry.

Greece's Supreme Court has turned down a request by deputy prosecutor Ioannis Angelis for a fellow deputy prosecutor and a former prosecutor to be taken off a probe concerning the alleged bribery scandal involving Swiss pharmaceutical firm Novartis.

The Novartis bribery case did not make the big bang some people had wished for, as it became quickly apparent that the political part of the affair was nothing more than a badly designed setup that seems to have already been forgotten.

The government official that supposedly influenced the investigation of alleged bribes paid by Novartis to politicians is Alternate Justice Minister Dimitris Papangelopoulos, former conservative premier Antonis Samaras claimed in an interview with the Parapolitika newspaper that was published on Saturday.

A Supreme Court official who has challenged the handling of an investigation into claims that several high-ranking opposition politicians had taken bribes from a Swiss pharmaceutical firm, has requested that his testimony before colleagues be postponed until after Greece's general elections on July 7.

Deputy Supreme Court prosecutor Ioannis Angelis on Thursday filed a request to have two high-ranking judicial officials barred from an investigation into the handling by judicial authorities of the Novartis bribery case.

Just two days before he will be deposed regarding his charges of a botched handling of the Novartis kickbacks case by his colleagues and of governmental meddling in the case, Deputy Supreme Court Prosecutor Ioannis Angelis has in a 10-page report requested that lawsuits filed by former PM Antonis Samaras, former Pasok leader Evangelos Venizelos, and European Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos (

In a new twist in the ongoing probe into the Novartis case, Deputy Supreme Court Prosecutor Ioannis Angelis submitted a report to the court's prosecutor's office calling for the reopening of three criminal lawsuits filed by three prominent politicians who were implicated in the alleged bribery investigation.

The allegations made by Deputy Supreme Court Prosecutor Ioannis Angelis over government involvement in the Novartis case - coming after similar claims in the past by other senior judicial officials - must be followed up until the matter is resolved.

Greek society is plagued by a general sense of injustice and this malaise is the cause of many ills.