Nikos Georgiadis, one of_x000D_
the closest aids of the leader of the Greek opposition, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, was_x000D_
found guilty by majority on Tuesday February 26th for Sexual Child_x000D_
Abuse following a Greek prosecutor’s proposal.
The court in Athens, Greece, did not recognize any mitigating circumstance and convicted Georgiadis, 55, who at the time of the crimes served as EU High Level Policy Adviser to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of Moldova (financed by the EU and administered by the UNDP) with a 28-month suspended prison sentence and a €20.000 fine.
The sexual abuse case was brought into the spotlight by the Greek investigative magazine «Hot Doc» in January 2016. The prosecutor, who repeatedly referred to the report published in Hot Doc, which included facts and witnesses’ statements concerning the involvement of Nikos Georgiadis’ name in a large trafficking and child abuse network , said: “I propose the conviction of the defendant for the multiple and repeated sexual assaults at minors older than 15 years against remuneration.”
Present at the trial was the former deputy spokesman of the opposition party, New Democracy, and current candidate in the following parliamentary elections, Konstantinos Kyranakis.
The prosecutor after reading the indictment exposed every argument of Mr. Georgiadis’ defence and most importantly the one stating that the report was aiming to hurt politically the defendant and Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who was then freshly elected as President of New Democracy. He mentioned that similar reports were made by investigative journalists in Moldavia in late 2010 and early 2011, which mentioned the name of Nikos Georgiadis as the only Greek who was involved in the trafficking network in Moldavia. The prosecutor wondered: “Why the defendant did not react back then? Were foreign journalists trying to hurt him politically? In 2010 there wasn’t any political motive underlying. There was only the pursuit of truth. Thus, one of the main arguments of the defence is being exposed, in my opinion”.
The prosecutor accepted as true the testimony to the magazine HotDoc and that on oath to the Greek police of the Moldavian lawyer, Natalia Bairam. The Chair of the court had denied the readout of the testimony on oath of the lawyer. But the prosecutor in his proposal mentioned that it fully corresponded to the investigative report of the HotDoc.
“The defendant Nikos Georgiadis hired one of the best lawyers in Moldavia to exclude his name from all cases. By all legal all other means he tried to block any further legal action against him”.
The court convicted Nikos Georgiadis with a 16-month prison sentence for the first victim and a 12-month prison sentence for each of the other two victims, which eventually merged to a 28-month suspended sentence. It also imposed a 10.000 euro compensation for each victim, which merged to a 20.000 euro fine.
