Marios Salmas, a former New Democracy MP who now sits as an independent, said in an interview that he knows “how deals are done in hospitals.” Speaking in Parliament, he also accused Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis of improper ties with Novartis and passive bribery.
Salmas’s remarks about hospitals prompted Adonis Georgiadis to file a lawsuit against him. Georgiadis accused him of seeking to become a protected witness in the United States in connection with the Novartis scandal and of trying to secure a multimillion-dollar reward.
Mr Georgiadis supported his claim by publishing documents in a social media post. More specifically, he stated:
The Novartis scandal broke in 2017 and concerns allegations that the pharmaceutical company bribed politicians, public officials and doctors working in Greece’s National Health System.
“Salmas initially attempted to become a protected witness in the United States and thereby receive a reward together with Destebasidis and a third person.” He added that the former New Democracy MP was ultimately “rejected by the US authorities as unreliable.”
Marios Salmas, for his part, said that he would also file a lawsuit. He stated that “it is unprecedented for a government minister to present forged and clearly falsified documents in which I am purported to have signed as ‘Dr Mario Salmasi’ and to have visited, as a protected witness, an Athens law firm belonging to a ‘Mr Petros Gavrilis,’ a person who does not exist and who is not a lawyer in Athens.”
Meanwhile, following the lawsuit filed by Adonis Georgiadis, Parliament voted to lift Marios Salmas’s parliamentary immunity.
Sources: Kathimerini [1], [2], Efimerida ton Syntakton [1], [2], Proto Thema
