Former president Nicos Anastasiades on Tuesday fought back against accusations of abuse of power and influence peddling levelled against him in the anti-corruption authority’s report on an investigation it conducted into his former aide and journalist Makarios Drousiotis’ book Mafia State, lambasting “smears” and “toxicity” on the part of his detractors in the aftermath of the report’s publishing.

“Some people did not need the [report’s] findings to come to a verdict. They have had their verdicts for years. After the announcement, there’s was smearing, toxicity, and character assassinations, and they turned the inventor of the ‘Sandy’ case into a hero,” he said.

He also accused his detractors of “violating the presumption of innocence”, saying that this is a “constitutional right”, and that despite this, “some set up courts of public opinion and convicted the ‘guilty’ based on the balance of probability”. 

Later, he was keen to stress, as he did in his initial statement after the report’s publication last week, that the allegations levelled against him in the report were different to those levelled against him in the book.

“After two and a half years of investigations, at a cost of EUR1.5 million, with 41 witnesses and 793 pieces of evidence, the author’s slanderous allegations are not contained in the announcement, because they were not even proven to the minimum extent required in the investigative procedures,” he said.

This, he added, is because they are “slanderous and unfounded allegations”

He then closed by saying that “if we want to have the rule of law, and to protect it and take action against those who undermine it with fabrications, such as those written in Mafia State or elsewhere, such as in the ‘Sandy’ case, the time has come”.

“What do we want here? The rule of law or the rule of the internet?”, he asked.

The “Sandy” case was a separate series of allegations made by Drousiotis earlier this year, relating to a now 45-year-old woman, known only as ‘Sandy’, who he claims was raped and stabbed by former supreme court judge Michalakis Christodoulou. Drousiotis also claims that Christodoulou fathered three of ‘Sandy’s’ children.

Christodoulou maintains his innocence, while all other public figures named in Drousiotis’ allegations related to the case have also denied all accusations levelled against them.

More to follow… 

More to follow…