X. Kastanidis: The government either violates logic or has something to hide

During today’s debate on the PASOK-Movement proposal, MP Haris Kastanidis referred to the multiple questions and the dark horizon created by the government’s handling of the case of the violation of the confidentiality of the communications of the President of PASOK-Movement Nikos Androulakis Change for the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry.

“Either they are violating common sense or they have something to hide. Two things,” he said, commenting on today’s statements by the Minister of State Giorgos Gerapetritis in his radio interview that no one knows the reason why Mr. Androulakis was being monitored. “Then what is the point of the invitation of the members of the government to be informed, since they do not know why they were being monitored? Why are they addressing Mr. Androulakis and dismissing him?”, asked Mr. Kastanidis. “Mr. Gerapetritis implies with his statements that only the National Intelligence Service knows, which, however, never sent an official invitation or a private invitation to Mr. Androulakis to inform him. The invitation was supposedly made by the government. But the government does not know”.

As for the Minister of State’s statement that no results were obtained from the monitoring, he raised another question. “Does it know that? They know that there was no result, but they don’t know why it’s being monitored so that we know whether or not there was a result.”

He further criticized the Prime Minister’s statement from the floor of the House during the recent debate that a Prime Minister cannot and is not allowed to know who is being watched. “But if this wording of his is true, then Mr. Kontoleon did his job very well in not informing him. Then why did he fire him? Common sense is often relentless. The question reasonably arises, what is the purpose of his dismissal?” he noted, including this question among the fundamental questions piling up around the case.

As Mr. Kastanidis pointed out, all of this leads us to the conclusion that “the Commission of Inquiry is more than ever necessary to investigate incidents, conditions, persons, decisions, in order to reach certain conclusions. Because when there is an institutional diversion, none of us, above all, the majority has no right to ignore it and not cooperate with all the opposition parties in order to find the best possible solution so that similar things do not happen again in the future”.

Regarding the second issue that should be examined, which concerns the attempt to trap the mobile phone of Mr. Androulakis with the predator, he mentioned that in America there are already decisions by which certain companies were excluded from its market. “We are not going to investigate anything here? Who is involved in the trade of predator and other spyware? Who is their clientele and how many of them own this software? How many private individuals own it and do they have any connection to the EYP? Does the EYP , like other secret services in Europe in the form of outsourcing has commissioned private individuals to do this work on its behalf? These all need to be investigated. These are very serious issues and problems.”

He also raised the question of who else might be being monitored, political figures or journalists. “Because what happened with Androulakis is not in a vacuum. The journalist Koukakis has been preceded by the same characteristics and even from the same infected link. There is also another big issue that the KKE raises with continuous complaints about the monitoring of his phone center,” he said.

“We have to complete the cycle of cases for which we know there are specific elements and huge question marks”, concluded Mr. Kastanidis, stressing that the Commission of Inquiry does not investigate periods, but cases.