Koskotas Scandal

Koskotas scandal () was a Greek corruption and financial scandal in 1988-1989 centered on George Koskotas, owner of the Bank of Crete and mass media magnate, implicating the highest-ranking members of the Greek government, including Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou. The scandal marked the end of Papandreou's era of populist rule, during which he tightly controlled the state apparatus since 1981.

Koskotas began his career as a bank employee at the Bank of Crete in 1979 and, within a few years, amassed a fortune by falsifying bank records. By 1985, he bought the Bank of Crete and laid the foundations for his media empire. However, his rise was interrupted by investigations into the rapid changes in media ownership in the mid-1980s, which Greek publishers and the judiciary scrutinized. He left Greece for the United States to avoid justice, where US authorities caught him for unrelated fraud crimes on 24 November 1988. While in prison, Koskotas claimed in a series of interviews that the missing over US$200 million from his bank was embezzled with the support of several government ministers and even Papandreou. In return, Koskotas supported Papandreou's socialist political party (PASOK) through his media empire, which was bought with embezzled money, including conservative newspapers critical of PASOK. The revelation gathered international attention and sparked political turmoil. Investigations exposed other corrupt practices within PASOK, which deepened the public's disillusionment. In response, Papandreou introduced legislation to prevent the investigation from advancing, and manipulated the state machine to consolidate his patronage and the state monopoly over radio and television services to maintain power and suppress the scandal.

Papandreou lost the June 1989 elections, owing much to the scandal. However, no single political party formed a government on its own, a consequence of Papandreou's electoral law change just before the elections that was intended to prevent the opposition from coming to power. The political gridlock led to an unexpected collaboration between conservative New Democracy and radical-left Synaspismos political parties to form a government with a limited mandate to carry out the investigations into PASOK's scandals that became known as "catharsis." This collaboration was extraordinary for Greek society since they were on opposite sides in the Greek civil war (1946-1949). However, the political polarization reached its peak when the Parliament indicted Papandreou and four of his ministers, with several terrorist attacks and assassinations occurred, aimed at intimidating the public and politicians.

Koskotas was extradited to Greece in 1991 for the trial, which lasted nine months, with live broadcasts dominating the daily news cycles and public discourse. At the end of the trial, Koskotas and Papandreou's ministers were found guilty, while Papandreou was acquitted by one vote. The trial became a landmark event in modern Greek history.

Background, Greece in the 1980s

The Third Hellenic Republic was established in 1974 during a turbulent time in Greece, following the collapse of a seven-year junta (1967-1974) due to its mishandling of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. Constantine Karamanlis returned from exile and laid the foundations for the new republic with the Constitution of 1975. At the same period, the Greek economy, which had outperformed in the previous two decades (1950-1973), began to slow down due to the oil crisis of the 1970s, causing also a spike in inflation, and the competition upon the country's entry into the European Market once joined in 1981.

In 1980, Karamanlis became President of Greece, leaving a power vacuum that led to Papandreou becoming Greece's first socialist prime minister. The rise of Papandreou, who campaigned on an anti-American, anti-EEC, and anti-NATO stance, was hailed as a milestone because PASOK was the first non-communist political party and a step toward healing the social wounds left by the Greek civil war (1946-1949). The cohabitation of the two men in the 1981-1985 period was successful, as Papandreou adopted a more pragmatic approach, shifting away from his earlier radical rhetoric and reversing many of his campaign promises. Papandreou implemented a transformative social agenda by expanding access to education and healthcare, reinforcing workers' rights, and passing a new family law that elevated women's position in society and the economy. However, Papandreou's policies only worsened the structural issues in the Greek economy, placing a heavy burden on the state through excessive borrowing to build an extensive patronage network. Furthermore, Papandreou repealed the anti-terrorist legislation in 1983, effectively weakening the Greek state's ability to curb the rise in terrorist incidents, which peaked in early 1990s.

In 1985, Papandreou triggered a constitutional crisis a few months before elections in 1985 by unexpectedly announcing that he would not support Constantine Karamanlis for a second term as President of the Republic, provoking strong criticism. Instead, he backed Supreme Court justice Christos Sartzetakis, who was popular with left-leaning voters for his investigation of the politically motivated murder of Grigoris Lambrakis in 1963. He also proposed constitutional amendments aimed at increasing the power of his position by weakening the presidential powers, which had served as checks and balances on the executive branch. The election of the new president took place under a tense and confrontational atmosphere due to Papandreou's dubious constitutional procedures. Sartzetakis' election helped Papandreou and his socialist party, PASOK, to secure victory in the 1985 general elections. However, the public was getting worried about the government's assertions of arbitrary power, e.g., national broadcasting organization was used as a public relations agency and the newspapers that were unfriendly to PASOK were openly threatened by his ministers.

Following Papandreou's election win, his government applied to the European Economic Community (EEC) for a $1.75 billion loan to address Greece's growing foreign trade deficit (which had reached 8.7% of GDP). However, the EEC imposed economic stabilization measures as a condition for the loan. Papandreou hailed the loan as a lifeline for Greece's economy, arguing that without it, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would have imposed even harsher austerity measures. After two years of austerity, Papandreou faced widespread backlash, including long-lasting strikes and demonstrations by farmers and major unions in early 1987. With elections on the horizon (1989), he abandoned the proposed reforms in favor of loosening monetary and fiscal policies, effectively undoing any progress to improve the economy and violating the terms of the loan agreement.

By the end of the decade, Greece's economy was burdened by debt that had nearly tripled in size, rising from 26.7% of GDP in 1981 to 73.3% of GDP in 1990. The country also faced high inflation rates, which fluctuated between 13% and 23% from 1981 to 1989, along with rising unemployment from 2.7% in 1980 to 8% in 1988, chronic primary budget deficits, and large government expenditures some intended to keep failed companies afloat, all of which strained the economy. At the same time, press reports of corruption within PASOK's government were being reported, over 200 scandals in the late 1980s. Notable among these were the " Yugoslav corn scandal," the "mass scale surveillance scandal," and the "public utilities scandal." However, Papandreou became embroiled in the Koskotas scandal, which overshadowed all other PASOK's scandals.

Koskotas' rise

Early years

Koskotas was born in Athens in 1954 to parents of limited means. In 1969, at the age of 15 and following his parents, he left Greece for the US to work as a worker in renovating houses at his father's business. He attended Fordham University and Lehman College in New York. During his 10-year stay in the US, Koskotas gained a reputation for deception offenses involving forging signatures, academic records, and assuming false identities, having a total official record of 64 offenses.

Bank of Crete

On 3 July 1979, Koskotas joined the Bank of Crete's financial administration department, which consisted of the accounting and computing sections. He was rapidly promoted to different positions, gaining access to the inner parts of the bank. From 18 July 1980 onwards, Koskotas started misappropriating large amounts of the bank's money in his accounts; some of the embezzled money was used to buy shares of the Bank of Crete, primarily from the major shareholder at the time, Ioannis Karras. Increasingly, he could change personnel with loyal people and execute his directives without questions. By 18 January 1985, Koskotas had gained complete control of the Bank by becoming President of the Bank's board and executive director of the Bank. Between 1984 and 1989, Koskotas tripled the number of Bank of Crete branches both in Greece and abroad while also making significant acquisitions, including the historic and luxurious Hotel Grande Bretagne, located near the Parliament. The rapid accumulation of wealth and its display caught the attention of the press, which dubbed him the "Donald Trump of Greece."

Mass media empire

In 1982, Koskotas founded the mass media company 'Grammi' () and became chairman of the board in the following year. Shortly thereafter, he had complete control of the company after forcing the founding members and major shareholders to withdraw. He created SKY 100.4 radio station, which would later evolve into Skai Group. Koskotas continued to strengthen his influence in the Greek media by acquiring the two largest conservative newspapers, Kathimerini from Helen Vlachos in May 1987 and Vradyni in June 1988. Both newspapers had been critical of Papandreou's policies until their acquisition from Koskotas. Effectively, Koskotas having embezzled substantial amounts from the bank's clients and used them to build a mass media empire that exclusively supported PASOK.

Scandal unravelled

Early investigation

George Koskotas had, in a short time, acquired several newspapers and magazines, a radio station, and one of the top soccer teams, Olympiacos F.C., in the mid-80s. Publishers became suspicious of the rapid changes in the media landscape and started investigating where Koskotas was finding all this money, as well as his close relationship with Papandreou and some of PASOK's ministers. Publishers began to make public their findings from investigations on Koskotas' past, and Koskotas responded by suing them for defamation. Moreover, it became apparent that Koskotas had help from the PASOK government in overcoming bureaucratic barriers to expand his media empire and the government resisted demands for an investigation, which started to intensify after Koskotas took over the Bank of Crete in 1985.

In October 1987, Koskotas was invited to a dinner by Ronald Reagan at the White House, but at the event, Secret Service discovered that Koskotas was under a six-year-old federal indictment for some of his crimes committed when he was living in the US until 1979 and they arrested him. He was released with a bail of one million dollars, but his passport was withheld pending trial. Koskotas went to the Greek embassy accompanied by Alexis Papahelas, who at the time was a journalist in Grammi, and requested documentation to return to Greece by claiming that he had lost his passport. Upon his return to Greece, Koskotas attempts to buy more mass media companies in response to publishers' requests for judicial investigation.

The negative publicity of Koskotas and rumors caused depositors of the Bank of Crete to withdraw their money, causing liquity concerns. At that point, according to Ioannis Palaiokrassas, who was a member of the parliamentary committee investigating the case, "We know that in the summer of 1988, during which Koskotas met with the prime minister at least once, large sums of money were deposited with the Bank of Crete by a dozen governmental organizations and enterprises." Approximately $35 million was deposited into the Bank of Crete, doubling its deposits, from various state companies, including Attica Bank, Hellenic Post, Olympic Airways, and Greek Telecommunications Corporation (OTE).

In June 1988, the Bank of Greece attempted to Bank of Crete, and Koskotas feared what may be uncovered and requested that the audit be paused through his connections to PASOK. Judicial investigations of the scandal were stalled by the Minister of Justice Koutsogiorgas. However, the Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals, Dimitris Blachos, went for holidays in Corfu on 5 July 1988, leaving the next judge in seniority in charge, Dimitris Tsevas, who re-initiated the judicial inquiry on 11 July 1988. Upon hearing the news, Blachos interrupted his holidays and reported Tsevas for disciplinary violation. At the same time, the newspaper Eleftherotypia published the initial findings of the judicial inquiry. In August 1988, the Minister of Justice Agamemnon Koutsogiorgas enacted a special Secrecy Act legislation (Law 1806/1988) that provided Koskotas protection from potential investigations.

Papandreou (at age 70) underwent major heart surgery in London in August 1988 and had to stay there for three months, and Koutsogiorgas was governing in his place though Papandreou refused to step down officially. However, in London, it was revealed that next to him was not his wife but Dimitra Liani, an Olympic Airways steward aged 33, who had met in 1986, and she was a constant companion in the last months before the surgery. After his return, she appeared frequently next to Papandreou, who was still married, receiving wide publicity in the Greek press due to the disregard for the strong family tradition in Greece and became the symbol of the political and moral decline of PASOK's governance. Papandreou's absence during these months also allowed the investigations to progress.

On 20 October 1988, the Greek courts suspended Koskotas as chairman of the Bank of Crete and indicted him on five counts of forgery and embezzlement. Two days later, Papandreou returned from London. On 31 October, the courts also restricted Koskotas from leaving Greece while the investigation was pending. Koskotas panicked and swiftly sold the ownership of his media empire and Olympiakos football team. To avoid justice, he left Greece for the United States (with an intermediary stop at Brazil) on 5 November 1988 despite being under strict surveillance by Greek security forces, and left from Athens Airport with the help of and his private jet. On 7 November 1988, the Minister of Public Order, , resigned since his ministry was responsible for police surveillance of Koskotas. On 11 November, Minister of Justice Koutsogiorgas also resigned due to accusations of illegal financial transactions with Koskotas; Papandreou made him Premier Deputy in mid-November. The opposition leader, Mitsotakis, accused the PASOK government in Parliament: "The Greek people are left with the conviction that George Koskotas was spirited away so that he would not speak. The responsibility goes all the way to the top of the government." He demanded Papandreou and his government to resign.

Koskotas arrested & revelations

Upon arrival at Bedford airport near Boston in Massachusetts, Koskotas was arrested on 24 November 1988 for the unresolved fraud crimes of his past and was jailed in the United States. On 28 November, Federal District Judge Miriam G. Cedarbaum froze Koskotas' United States assets (estimated between 30 and 35 million dollars) after the Bank of Crete filed in Manhattan a lawsuit accusing Koskotas of having embezzled hundreds of millions of dollars. The day after, Ron Liebman, Koskotas' lawyer, said that his client sought entry to the United States "because he had been advised that Greek operatives had been dispatched to kill him."

In December 1988, after the opposition and various respected former ministers called for a clean-up, Papandreou yielded under pressure to a parliamentary commission inquiry. Demetrios Halikias, the governor of the Bank of Greece, testified to the commission on 7 December 1988 that two senior PASOK ministers (one of who was Koutsogiorgas) had tried to prevent an audit of the Bank of Crete. On 10 December, Papandreou's legal adviser, , resigned on the ground that Koutsogiorgas continued to be in office after the testimony of Halikias. Additional resignations followed (Stathis Yiotas, Deputy Defence Minister, and Theodore Karatzas, Finance Under Secretary) upon the revelations during the inquiry that the members of Papandreou's government were profiteering by illegal arms sales to both sides in the Iran–Iraq War and the apartheid state of South Africa. It also revealed that for the "purchase of the century" (40 American F-16 and 40 French Mirage 2000 aircraft), the Greek state overpaid by as much as 20% above the true cost due to illegal commissions to PASOK members.

Various media outlets started interviewing Koskotas for his position while he was in prison. On one occasion, he said,

Koskotas claimed that he was able to approach Papandreou by hiring one of his close associates as the bank's general manager. For Koskotas, it was a transactional relationship while Papandreou requested Koskotas to buy newspapers that had been critical to the PASOK government, including the magazine publishing nude photographs of Papandreou's mistress, Koskotas was getting swift approvals from the PASOK government for new bank branches throughout Greece. However, Papandreou's requests started to increase in frequency because Papandreou used the fact that Koskotas skipped bail in the US to extract favorable actions for PASOK. Examples included Koskotas buying the popular football team Olympiacos F.C. because the government wanted to build a new stadium for the team, preventing the publication of a critical book from the first wife of Papandreou, to fund various pro-PASOK organizations.

In March 1989, Time magazine published an article titled "The looting of Greece," describing in detail the allegations that Koskotas made to US officials. Koskotas alleged that Papandreou and other PASOK high functionaries had ordered state corporations to deposit funds (over $200 million) with the Bank of Crete, which went missing in the form of bribes and acquisition of mass media companies. When Koskotas was spooked by the June 1988 audit from the Bank of Greece, he told Koutsogiorgas, "If I am destroyed, we'll all be destroyed. You know what they will find at the bank." He also claimed that he talked to Papandreou directly, who responded, "Don't worry, I'll stop the audit. As long as I'm prime minister, nothing's going to happen." Koskotas claimed that on one occasion, he had delivered to Papandreou himself $600,000 stuffed in a Pampers Diapers box. Papandreou denied the story, accused the US of manufacturing this scandal to destroy him, and even sued Time magazine. Koskotas also revealed in an interview in The Times that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) chief Yasser Arafat secretly funded Papandreou for his 1981 election campaign. Koskotas revealed that $2 million had been deposited in a Swiss account in exchange for Minister of Justice Koutsogiorgas for the legislation introduced in August 1988 that aimed at protecting him from investigations.

Political turmoil

Koskotas's accusations gained international attention. Several months after the arrest of Koskotas, six ministers (including Costas Simitis) resigned in protest of the corruption among the most senior members of PASOK. There were demands for a vote of no confidence against the government, which Papandreou defeated in December 1988 and another one in March 1989. Still, three members of PASOK voted against the party line, however, Papandreou responded by removing them from PASOK, including Antonis Tritsis, who was a founding member of PASOK.

Abuse of power

Despite the rising public frustration with the state of affairs, Papandreou abused his position to stay in power since he had successfully removed constitutional restraints in 1985. Notable actions include but are not limited to the following:
* Papandreou changed the electoral law shortly before the June 1989 general elections, a move designed to prevent New Democracy from securing an absolute majority.
* Bestowing public appointments to about 90,000 people to gain additional votes six months before the 1989 elections; Synaspismos political party decried this as a "recruitment orgy." Papandreou's blatant patronage reached the point of giving in one of his rallies a public command to the Minister of Finance Dimitris Tsovolas to "give it all o them () and "Tsovolas, empty the coffers f the state" and the crowd chanted these back.
* Judicial independence was damaged when Papandreou passed a law via emergency procedures despite massive backlash from lawyers, judges, and clerks, to prevent the judicial investigation of the Koskotas scandal from advancing to Athens Appeals Court.

June 1989 election campaigns

The election campaigns were conducted under a polarised atmosphere with inflammatory allegations and vitriolic personal attacks, even between the two leaders of the dominant political parties. PASOK's programme avoided mentioning the Koskota scandal and instead emphasized economic modernization with slogans, "For Victory and New Progress," and "PASOK is here: certainty for the present, hope for the future." New Democracy's campaign strategy was based on liberalization of the market, i.e., "free the competitive forces of the market" from the overreaching state, but also criticized PASOK about the scandals with the slogan, "We deserve a better Greece."

On 2 June, , a tabloid newspaper supporting PASOK, published a transcript of a conversation between Mitsotakis and an unidentified mistress that was supposedly being taped and also claimed to possess 'pornographic' photographs of Mitsotakis but never published. This was in response to the publication of nude photos of sunbathing Liani, Papandreou's then-mistress. The rhetorical confrontation between the two leaders in the campaigns was personal. Papandreou implied that Mitsotakis was a Nazi collaborator during World War II and talked about Mitsotakis' "treachery" against his father's government in Apostasia of 1965. On the other side, Mitsotakis, invoking the Koskotas scandal, talked of Papandreou's "little corrupt team that has looted Greece" and that PASOK was led by "a bunch of thieves." Papandreou's defense was that the scandal was created and used against him: "The Americans and the Right together with the crook Koskotas are conspiring to otherthrow socialism in Greece." Despite the friction between the two sides in the newspapers, PASOK had the advantage of being the governing party having control of the state apparatus that provided radio and television services, which became an unconcealed component of PASOK's propaganda. For example, state television programs, including from two foreign cable networks, were interrupted to display Papandreou's final speech at his mass rally in Athens, but no such opportunity was presented for other political leaders.

Weeks before the elections, various terrorist groups advocated to the public to spoil their ballots and used bombs against public buildings, including those of Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Justice.

Irregularities and poor vote handling and counting were reported during the election day. Antonis Tritsis, a PASOK defector and leader of Greek Radical Movement, accused the state officials of not sending his party ballots to many polling stations. Mitsotakis also accused the government of failing to send the election officials to their appointed polling stations or delayed opening. Both New Democracy and Synaspismos were irritated by the refusal of the Ministry of Interior to release the official vote count, which was released a week later.

Catharsis

In the June 1989 elections, PASOK's electoral percentage dropped to 38%, down from 48% in 1981, primarily due to the fallout from the Koskotas scandal. Although Mitsotakis' New Democracy party secured 43%, it was insufficient to form a government, as Papandreou's last-minute change of the electoral law required a party to win 50% of the vote to govern alone. Papandreou hoped that while PASOK might come second in electoral votes, it could form a government with the support of the other leftist parties, but he was rejected. Instead, New Democracy (right wing) collaborated with the Synaspismos (radical left), led by Charilaos Florakis, to form a government under Tzannis Tzannetakis; despite being on the opposite ideological sides (as well in the Greek Civil War), both sought a "catharsis," meaning the investigation and trial of PASOK's corruption. This decision carried significant weight, as failing to bring charges against Papandreou under this coalition would prevent any future government from doing so according to the Greek constitution. The participation of the Synaspismos party in the government also marked the end of the militarized politics of the past since there was no reaction from the military. Papandreou denounced the collaborative government as "unholy and unprincipled," and he ordered his ministers not to cooperate in the handover of power, and official documents and state treaties went missing.

Fotis Kouvelis, President of the Athens Bar Association, was appointed Minister of Justice and tasked with organizing the judicial processes for the parliamentary investigation and indictments. While the Minister of the Interior became Nikos Konstantopoulos, a PASOK defector, and he was tasked to cleanse the state machine for the upcoming November election. On 8 July, the collaborative government received 174 out of 300 votes of confidence, signaling the start of parliamentary investigations. The government also granted the first private television broadcast licenses to publishers critical to PASOK as a counterbalance to state media to avoid future political exploitation from any future omnipotent prime minister.

Investigations

The main agenda in the parliamentary investigation was Koskotas' allegation that PASOK aimed to take the interest from state deposits in the Bank of Crete to fund PASOK for the upcoming election campaign, and bribes were paid to , who was Papandreou's close friend and associate. A secondary allegation against Papandreou was that he used £6 million state money to cover the settlement of debts of an Athens luxury hotelier in exchange for using a seaside villa along with Dimitra Liani before their marriage on 13 July.

Two more commission inquiries led to the "Yugoslav corn" and "wiretapping" scandals. The latter revealed that Papandreou used the Junta's surveillance infrastructure (filing and wiretapping) against any Greek citizen who was not loyal to him. In the list of "suspected terrorists" according to Papandreou included prominent politicians across the political spectrum, his ministers, publishers, policy chiefs, and even PASOK's governmental spokesman.

Indictments and assassinations

Political polarization peaked five weeks before the scheduled elections of November 1989, when the Greek parliament was set to begin deliberations on whether Papandreou and four of his ministers should be indicted. On this day, 26 September 1989, just hours before deliberations were to start, Pavlos Bakoyannis (son-in-law of Mitsotakis), a prominent conservative member of parliament and the architect of collaboration between the left and right wings for Papandreou's indictment, was shot by 17 November terrorist group outside his office in Athens. Both major political parties, New Democracy and PASOK, blamed each other for the assassination. The already tense and polarized rhetoric was further inflamed by the press, with one conservative newspaper publishing a front-page portrait of Papandreou with the headline, "He is the assassin." The same terrorist organization a few months before had attempted to assassinate , who was slightly injured from a car explosion en route to work, for the alleged involvement in the Koskotas scandal. The day after Bakoyannis' death, Papandreou stormed out of Parliament, shouting, "I accuse my accusers," just before the parliamentary vote on his indictment; Papandreou and four of his ministers were indicted, marking the first and only time a prime minister of Greece has been indicted. The indictments were based on the following:

*Andreas Papandreou, Prime Minister, was accused of ordering the deposit of money from state organizations to Koskotas' bank, receiving bribes, and accepting proceeds of crime.
*Agamemnon Koutsogiorgas, Deputy Prime Minister, was accused of receiving bribes for advancing legislation to shield Koskotas from investigations and assisting a criminal.
*George Petsos, Minister of Transportation, was accused of receiving money from Koskotas and ordered the Hellenic Post, OTE, and Olympic Airways directors to deposit state money to the Bank of Crete. He was also accused of illegally granting a license for a building expansion part of the Koskotas' Grammi media corporation.
*Dimitris Tsovolas, Minister of Finance, was accused of using illegal methods to settle debts of the owner of the Hotel Grande Bretagne to the Greek state because Koskotas wanted to buy it free of debt.
*Panagiotis Roumeliotis, on violation of the law on ministerial liability.

Papandreou responded by claiming that the indictment was an effort "to besmirch my political honor and personal honesty," and then added, "is proving more and more to be a pretext for the settling of personal and political accounts .. mudslinging aimed at the dissolution of PASOK." After the indictments, the collaborative government dissolved on 7 October, and a caretaker government under Ioannis Grivas took over until the elections on 5 November. On 22 October, there was an assassination attempt against Mitsotakis hours before addressing his supporters in Mytilini on the island of Lesbos.

National Unity government & 1990 elections

In the November 1989 elections, New Democracy got 46% of the vote but could still not produce a government. All the parties in Parliament (New Democracy, PASOK, and Synaspismos) entered a National Union government, which excluded the leaders of the three parties, under Xenophon Zolotas (a retired banker at the age of 85) as a way out of the deadlock and to restore public trust in political institutions. Zolotas resigned in April 1990 due to the inability to reverse the continuous deterioration of the Greek economy from Papandreou's handling in previous years. In the elections of April 1990, Mitsotakis received sufficient (by one seat above the threshold) support to form a government, and Papandreou became the opposition leader. This marked the end of the political dominance of PASOK in its first era.

Trial

Koskotas was extradited to Greece in 1991 for the trial, and Papandreou's trial began in Athens on 11 March 1991. However, as a former prime minister, he exercised his constitutional right not to attend the trial and proclaimed that the trial was a witch-hunt. Roumeliotis also did not participate in the trial because he became deputy of the European Parliament and had immunity from prosecution. In January 1992, the Parliament-appointed tribunal of 13 judges of Supreme Special Court, having heard over 100 witnesses and investigated 50,000 pages of documents over ten months, acquitted Papandreou of the charge of instigating the loss of funds of state companies with a 7–6 vote and a bribery charge of receiving the proceeds of a crime with a vote 10–3. A month into the trial, the deputy of the Prime Minister, Agamemnon Koutsogeorgas, who was a close friend of Papandreou, had a stroke on the witness stand, on live television, and died a few days afterward. Dimitris Tsovolas, the former Minister of Finance, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and a three-year ban on holding any political office. George Petsos was sentenced to ten months in prison and received a two-year ban from holding any political office. Koskotas was tried and sentenced to a 25-year prison term; he served twelve years in prison, after which he was released.

The reasoning of the judges regarding their verdict for Papandreou is outlined in the opinion:

The judges who dissented explained their reasoning as follows:

When Constantine Karamanlis was asked about the verdict, he remarked, "In democracies, prime ministers do not go to prison. They return home," with this, he reaffirmed the court's decision while at the same time admitting the existence of both positive and negative consequences for the country. The trial was characterized as the "trial of trials" and the most critical judicial decision in modern Greek history since the Trial of the Six in 1922.

Aftermath

The Koskotas scandal was pivotal during the Metapolitefsi era, contributing to the collapse of Greece's popular PASOK government, harming the economy, and tarnishing the country's reputation internationally. Its significance is reflected in three ways. First, the scandal rocked the Greek political establishment due to the unprecedented trial of a Greek prime minister by a civilian court, and a large number of politicians and state officials were implicated, and put to trial. The retired Karamanlis commented on the political situation at the end of Papandreou's second administration: " reece has becomea boundless lunatic asylum." Second, during the Koskotas trial, the government's relationships with other elites in Greek society, which had previously been opaque, were exposed to the public; these "interwoven interests" had grown due to influx of money from European Economic Community. Specifically, the scandal revealed to the Greek public the involvement of numerous prominent figures, including political personalities, bankers, entrepreneurs, directors of state organizations, judges, and lawyers, all involved in some measure in Koskotas' business deals. Third, the size of the money embezzled was unprecedented, as a diplomat based in Athens described it: "A quarter to a third of a billion dollars in a country whose legal economy is only about $42 billion, ..this thing is Drexel urnhamLambert, Ivan Boesky and Billy Sol Estes rolled into one."

The scandal attracted considerable domestic and international attention because, as journalist Stephen Brookes explained, it had "all the right ingredients - a fat banker, mink-coated women, death threats, corrupt politicians, suitcases of cash passed surreptitiously in Athens hotel rooms - the papers have been having a field day." The scandal, along with the public affair with Liani, became a source of nightly satire in theaters of Athens. Lakis Lazopoulos, a comedian, commented, "You can look at what is going on in Greece... and choose to laugh or cry," and he added, "My country has become a cabaret review."
The widespread scandals, mostly from the Koskotas affair, that dominated public life and discourse in 1989 gave rise to the term "Dirty '89;" some journalists used this term to denigrate the historic compromise, "catharsis," between the Left and the Right.

The trial and daily debates on television, radio, and in the press had a cathartic effect on the public, helping to alleviate collective guilt since many Greeks participated in the rise of socialism in Greece, voted for PASOK, or were recipients of Papandreou's patronage. The trial also reinforced the idea among ordinary citizens that no one is above the law.

Social norms

The Koskotas scandal sparked social studies into Greek political culture. One finding was that the Koskotas scandal affected voter preferences, while the Liani affair did not have a significant effect. The latter suggested that the Greek society, while traditional, is not a puritan society, tolerating extra-marital relations. However, the fallout from the Koskotas scandal was less extensive than expected if the same had happened in a Western democratic country. After the indictment, Papandreou even gained 1.5% of the vote in the November elections. Scholars attribute the loyalty of a significant portion of the Greek electorate to Papandreou's system of patronage. Before Papandreou came to power, political parties were characterized by decentralized clientelistic networks controlled by politicians who were not entirely loyal to the party leader. Papandreou changed this old system to a centralized personalism of the typical populist. Moreover, Papandreou merged party politics with the state, effectively making the state the source of his patronage. A notable example is that, in the early 1980s, when the European Economic Community provided funds to Greece for its transition into the European market, recipients believed that the funds came from the PASOK government rather than the Community itself. Another aspect was that over one-third of the Athenians surveyed believed that Koskotas was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent tasked with destabilizing the Greek political system, which was resonating with the conspiratorial rhetoric of Papandreou. Pappas noted, "This refusal to distinguish between party loyalty on the one hand, and political corruption and constitutional violence on the other, is in itself another sad reflection of contemporary Greek life." Another scholar, Quinn, provided the following observation, "Despite the allegations and accusations, Mr. Papandreou proved that the force of his personality has left a mark on the Greek people ..people do not vote for a party ..they vote for people, charisma and personality." This observation suggested that the political ethics of Greek society differ from those of other Western countries. Dimitras provided a more detailed explanation, "Greeks believe that political life and politicians are corrupt anyway, some more, others less ..The moral issue here is not as important as in other countries."

Greek state reformed & return to power

With Papandreou's fall, the Greek state was reformed to heal the damage caused by excessive patronage and polarization politics that dominated the 1980s. Mitsotakis improved relations with the US, which Papandreou's anti-American rhetoric had damaged, by signing a defense cooperation agreement regarding the operation of American bases in Greece for the next eight years, and Greece provided airspace and naval support during the Gulf War. He also changed course from Papandreou's stance on terrorism by reinstating Karamanlis' anti-terrorism legislation (Law 1916/1990) and any terrorists found and the PLO representatives were expelled. Mitsotakis' government also introduced a series of austerity measures, which were necessary for the Greek economy to converge with the Euro convergence criteria. The Greek economy started to recover due to Mitsotakis' economic policies, but this was not enough to balance the rising frustration of the Greek voters with the impact of the austerity measures on their lives. Mitsotakis' government lost its slim majority when one of his deputies, Antonis Samaras, left the New Democracy party (June 1993) in protest of Mitsotakis's moderate handling of the Macedonia naming dispute with the neighboring country.

Papandreou campaigned by promising to bring back the euphoria of the early 1980s. Moreover, PASOK's campaign program had dropped the past socialist ideals and instead presented itself as a "responsible" political party. The Greek people voted in October 1993 the return of Papandreou to power. Papandreou abandoned his campaign promises and continued Mitsotakis's austerity policies with minor alterations, expanding the deregulation and liberalizing the economy. In 1994, Papandreou disrupted the political landscape when, in response to his indictment, he charged Mitsotakis with accepting bribes related to selling a state-owned cement company to an Italian firm. Papandreou also included charges of phone-tapping political opponents and illegally acquiring antiquities. All the charges were eventually dropped. From mid-1995, his frail health kept him confined to his home, and after complications at the end of November, he resigned on 16 January 1996, and he died on 23 June 1996.

Containing the fallout

Once the authorities' investigations concluded, all non-politician individuals involved in the scandal were fined monetary amounts. Two such individuals became fugitives to avoid justice, and another committed suicide.

After PASOK's return to power in 1993, it introduced legislation (Law 2298/1995) to end any pending cases from the fallout of the Koskotas scandal; the law violated Article 4 of the Greek Constitution. Later on, the Supreme Court of Greece noted that while the Parliament may be unwilling to lift the immunity of its deputies and prosecute those involved, it argued that the legislation did not apply to non-politicians like Koskotas.

Banking

Since the Koskotas scandal, the banking systems in Greece have been modernized, and banking supervision has become stricter. Specifically, all banks and companies in Athens Stock Exchange adhere to a mandatory corporate governance code, which requires an internal auditor to report to the audit committee of members of the board of directors. In 2002, this corporate governance code became mandatory. The need for auditors led to the creation of new auditing firms and the establishment of the Accounting Standardization Committee, a public body that supervises auditing reports in Greece and takes disciplinary action against improprieties from the banks, companies, and auditors who fail to perform their duties. In 1998, the chief accountant became co-responsible with the Chief executive officer of a company after Presidential Decree 340/1998; beforehand, the accountants were not responsible since they were viewed as employees.

After unraveling the Koskotas scandal, the Bank of Crete was privatized and merged into other Greek banking institutions.

Notes

Footnotes

Sources

; Constitution & Laws of Greece

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; Books

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; Journals

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; Newspapers & magazines

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; Web and other sources

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Additional reading

*{{cite court
, litigants=Koskotas v. Roche
, vol=740
, reporter=F. Supp.
, opinion=904
, pinpoint=
, court=U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts
, date=27 June 1990
, url=https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/740/904/1951738/ , ref=none

Andreas Papandreou
PASOK
Political scandals in Greece
Financial scandals
Corruption in Greece
Trials in Greece
1989 scandals
1989 in Greece
History of Greece since 1974
1980s in Greek politics