The trial of former MEP Anna-Michel Asimakopoulou and three other individuals continued with intense cross-accusations between the defendants regarding the personal data leak case involving diaspora voters. The defendants testified before the Athens Three-Member Misdemeanor Court, each attributing responsibility to the others for the circulation of the controversial file.
Read: Anna Michel Asimakopoulou in the dock for diaspora email leak case – Trial in November
Diaspora email leak trial: Michalis Stavriannoudakis testifies first
The first to testify was former Interior Ministry Secretary General Michalis Stavriannoudakis, who categorically denied any involvement in the file leak. “I categorically declare I had no access, didn’t download any file, nor sent anything. Only employees of the elections directorate have access. Not even the general director could have it, which is why an internal investigation was conducted.
If not even the general director can have it, how could a political figure like me have it? The elections directorate is in another building, guarded by police 24/7. No one has access to enter alone, like myself. I learned about the leak from the media. I left (was transferred to another position) in August 2023, these events happened nine months later. There had been no citizen complaints. The Prime Minister asked me to help defuse the situation with my resignation. I spoke with the Deputy Minister to the Prime Minister,” the defendant said.
The former Secretary General said his resignation was requested by the Prime Minister’s office, while maintaining that the ministry’s announcement contained three inaccuracies. When asked by the presiding judge about his co-defendant Nikos Koromilas’s claim that he sent him the file, he said he doesn’t know why he says that, “maybe he’s following Marinakis’s line.” “Stavriannoudakis told me to send it to Theodoropoulos.”
Koromilas’s testimony
For his part, Menios Koromilas, then Secretary of Local Government and Crisis Management for New Democracy, repeated in his testimony that the file was sent to him by the then Interior Ministry Secretary General. “On June 23, 2023, two days before the parliamentary elections, on a very difficult day because the Prime Minister had a pre-election speech, Mr. Stavriannoudakis told me ‘someone of mine will send you a file, forward it to Mr. Theodoropoulos.’ And that’s what happened, an unknown person sent me a file and I forwarded it to Mr. Theodoropoulos,” the defendant said.
Presiding Judge: It could have been an unrelated file, dangerous…
Defendant: You’re right, I imagined Mr. Theodoropoulos would send me something if it was dangerous.
Presiding Judge: You understand what you’re saying doesn’t hold up, 30 years old, a politician, forwarding a file like that without checking it.
Defendant: My mind was mush, I had many things on my mind, mayors were calling me, local councilors, etc., so I didn’t open it.
Mr. Koromilas insisted that it never occurred to him that it might “be something dangerous or that would cause me problems,” while maintaining that Mr. Theodoropoulos never contacted him and that the phone number that sent him the file was unknown, as he didn’t open the file.
“It was an extremely difficult day, my phone was ringing non-stop, it was the pre-election speech, we were expecting 70 mayors to organize,” Mr. Koromilas insisted. Regarding his mobile phone, the defendant said it… broke in December 2023 and he hadn’t backed it up, so the file doesn’t exist.
Prosecutor: At that moment when you received the call, didn’t you wonder why me?
Defendant: No, I didn’t wonder, he didn’t tell me with a mocking tone that would make me question it.
Prosecutor: If someone told me that, I would put them through interrogation.
Defendant: I understand what you’re saying but there are times when the mind locks up.
Court Member: You said you had a six-month relationship with Mr. Stavriannoudakis, had you done other favors for him?
Defendant: What do you mean favors? We collaborated regarding mayors.
Presiding Judge: The average reasonable person wouldn’t think like that.
Court Member: Didn’t you think someone of his could forward it?
Defendant: I didn’t think of it like that at all.
“Iphigenia in Aulis”
For his part, Mr. Theodoropoulos, the party’s diaspora secretary, was torrential, presenting himself as “Iphigenia in Aulis.” The defendant said in his testimony that he was subjected to suffocating pressure from his blue party comrades not to initially tell the whole truth about Mr. Koromilas’s involvement and mentioned that Mrs. Asimakopoulou wished him “good luck!”
The defendant said he received the file from Mr. Koromilas on June 24, 2023, six hours before polling stations opened for diaspora voters. “In the June elections I received the file on behalf of the party to see how Greeks abroad vote, gender, age, city, to draw some conclusions since exit polls aren’t conducted for diaspora elections. For us it had no utility for the elections. That was the reason I used it,” the defendant said.
Presiding Judge: What did you do when you received it?
Defendant: After a while I went to the column that interested us, gender, age, city… I had requested only one country and five or six cities. And he sent me a huge file with all cities. I only spoke with Mr. Koromilas that day, on behalf of the party and sent it to party officials.
I can prove we spoke but we had also spoken another time a month before about Lithuania. I never spoke with Mr. Stavriannoudakis about the disputed matter. I spoke on behalf of the party, it’s been proven by the Authority that I acted within my duties. The initial information was that a Stavriannoudakis associate sent something to Theodoropoulos, that I took something from the Interior Ministry, I suffered this cannibalism and didn’t deny it, Mr. Bratakos asked me not to deny it.
Ten days later he resigned, the only one who knew all this, that I’m innocent, was Mr. Bratakos. Mr. Koromilas remained in his position. Mr. Bratakos told me there’s political exploitation happening and don’t do anything. All this started from fellow candidates of Mrs. Asimakopoulou who wanted to harm her and then Mrs. Kerameos wanted to protect her own political capital and postal voting. When it appeared it wasn’t me, Koromilas’s second response to the Authority was from a New Democracy email.
Presiding Judge: So you were an Iphigenia in Aulis
Defendant: I wasn’t just sacrificed, I was cannibalized. That I’m a carrier, an interceptor, Kerameos presented it as if I went to the Interior Ministry and I had no connection. They tried to connect it with postal voting. I had no connection whatsoever with emails. I sent an electoral roll file that I hadn’t even opened in its full form. I never had intent, any intention…
The defendant admitted he sent it to Mrs. Asimakopoulou. She had sent me a New Year’s message and we spoke on January 19 and she told me we can talk tomorrow. We had met once or twice. We met on January 20. She told me she had undertaken promoting postal voting from the Prime Minister and Kerameos. She told me she wants to see where it’s worth going to Canada and other countries, she wants to see where she’ll make strategic targeting and invest her time for postal voting.
I asked, they told me she has undertaken it and I sent it to her. There’s a legal gap, in Greece electoral rolls are renewed every two months and sent to parties, while abroad, the most recent were from the June elections, she couldn’t get them because there was a legal gap, the defendant described. “I opened the file in its full form on March 2, 2024,” the defendant said.
Prosecutor: Do you say this electoral law was ever obtained legally?
Defendant: That’s what New Democracy says. The whole party used only WhatsApp for convenience and speed. I believe this happens in all parties. What Mr. Koromilas did wasn’t strange, it was something everyone did.
The defendant then said he officially informed New Democracy in June 2024 about Mr. Koromilas’s role while adding “I don’t believe he obtained it the way he says but that he’s protecting other people. I know Mrs. Kerameos didn’t want Mr. Stavriannoudakis in the position he had. I believe he did what he did because he was asked by the Prime Minister and is paying for others’ sins.”
Mr. Theodoropoulos claimed that Mrs. Asimakopoulou was also told to say “Theodoropoulos.” He mentioned suffering “extreme pressure” not to tell the truth from March to June 2024. “I took something, an electoral roll file, from a party official and gave it to a party official. I have no connection to the Interior Ministry,” Mr. Theodoropoulos repeated emphatically, responding to a court member’s question, adding that he was asked by Mr. Bratakos and there was extreme pressure from elsewhere not to say anything.
The defendant also claimed that former ADAE president K. Menoudakos apologized to him for how the Authority treated him. He also added that the last time he spoke with Mrs. Asimakopoulou in March 2024 she said “Nikos, I’ll speak to you like your mother, good luck.”
About the former MEP he said he didn’t give the file to a random person but to one of the best we have who knows GDPR inside out. “She suffered a lot and I ask for my complete acquittal because I’m not 99% innocent but 100% innocent,” Mr. Theodoropoulos concluded.
“I didn’t know it was illegal”
Mrs. Asimakopoulou testified last, also in high tones and directing her “arrows” at her co-defendant, Mr. Theodoropoulos. “With respect I listened to my three co-defendants, including Theodoropoulos who says he was forced to leave and was cannibalized and Mr. Stavriannoudakis who had an impeccable career. I want to explain what happened from my perspective because this scandal is called Michel-gate. I entered politics in the European Parliament in 2019, GDPR was a big part of how I organized my office, what happened is my responsibility.
I won’t say a mistake was made, that an accountant made a mistake in asset declarations, a lawyer in my office. Taking lists from the party I created a list of 45,000 people, in combination with GDPR. In all elections I took lists from the party, from 2015, from 2019, you apply to the IT directorate and they give you files.
The time for postal voting came, it was a major reform, we were ordered to promote it to diaspora citizens because in the previous 2023 elections they had suffered, we thought it very right to inform them that now things are simple. We said let’s create a newsletter to inform about postal voting, I asked my office what we have from diaspora, they told me we have 5,000 who have given us consent, I said it’s few, get from the party, Mrs. Mani called, an excellent professional, she told me they said to speak with Mr. Theodoropoulos, they told me to send two letters from my office, one to the IT directorate and one to Mr. Theodoropoulos, I said, out of naivety and for my bad luck, let my office not take it but let me speak myself. We met, the boy told me his news, told me what they’re going to do for postal voting and at the end I told him you’ll send me something too, he said yes of course I’ll send you.”
At some point the file comes from Mr. Theodoropoulos, I knew what he would send me, I asked him for diaspora citizens who had given consent to the party for the party to communicate with them. If I wanted statistical data with all respect to him, I wouldn’t take from him. I thought he had diaspora citizens who had given consent. I believed it because that’s what I had requested from the party. I would ask them institutionally for electoral rolls from the Interior Ministry because that’s how I always got them. I asked for a list of party members and friends. I might have clicked to open it, maybe not, I forwarded it to my office and deleted it from my phone.
Monday Mrs. Mani, my colleague, excellent, calls me and says you forwarded the file from Theodoropoulos, they told me it’s an excel with names, addresses and emails, 25,000 people, this list in my office is called the Theodoropoulos list, Mrs. Mani also sends to the party because she’s a serious professional, and the party responds, following telephone communication, the lists might not be updated because speak also with the diaspora secretariat, they respond and send me presidiums and officials, about 2,000.”
Presiding Judge: You see the difference…
Defendant: I have five thousand, 2,000 party members and presidium and 25,000 that Mr. Theodoropoulos had sent me. Finally 49,000 voted, why shouldn’t the 25,000 be New Democracy, got 49% among diaspora?
If Mr. Theodoropoulos thought he would give me a file for strategic analysis, why give me the emails? I was going to campaign for postal voting by order of everyone including the minister. I’m here because when this took the dimension it took, it had me as the spearhead. This letter went to 32,000 people. The “don’t want” messages start coming, this always happens, you unsubscribe them and then an internet chat begins because the same day Kerameos also sends about postal voting and they start saying postal voting data was leaked, panic in the Government.
What Mrs. Asimakopoulou kept repeating is that she didn’t know it was something illegal, adding she didn’t request electoral rolls. “We’re saying I took something knowing it was illegal, knowing what would happen to me, I don’t think I’m clever-stupid, useful-stupid maybe if I was,” Mrs. Asimakopoulou said.
She then described what happened after the scandal broke and her contacts with the Maximos Mansion. “They call me and ask for explanations from Maximos. Who did you send it to? I tell them to five thousand of ours, 2,000 from the party and 25,000 from the Theodoropoulos list,” Mrs. Asimakopoulou said, repeating that she thought the 25,000 list was from the party.
“That’s why my first
