The testimony of Maria Maraggeli, former secretary of Konstantinos Frouzis, continues at the Athens Single-Member Misdemeanor Court in the trial of the two former protected witnesses in the Novartis case. The witness maintains before the court everything she had testified with her capacity as a former protected witness in the pharmaceutical company case, under the code name “Aikaterini Kelesi.”
Novartis trial: “We were a state within a state,” testified Maria Maraggeli
“In 2007 I was hired by Novartis and worked until September 2018. From my position I saw, heard and experienced illegal practices of the company. Everything I said, saw, heard and experienced was true and has nothing to do with the word lie,” said the witness defending herself in court. Mrs. Maraggeli described to the court how “from Gleevec onwards, Konstantinos Frouzis had brought the company to a point where we were a state within a state. There are ministerial decisions during the terms of Georgiadis and Loverdos that came in draft form. Frouzis would take these, return them and they would submit them. And before they went to the national printing house of the state, they came to us, we approved them and then publication took place. This happened many times,” said the defendant facing charges, at misdemeanor level, for false accusation and false testimony.
Anastasia Maraggeli: maintains claim about Frouzis-Samaras meeting
The former protected witness, among other things she has testified, has provided all the evidence while insisting that the former powerful man of Novartis Hellas met with then-Prime Minister Antonis Samaras in 2013. “First he met with D. Ptochos with whom he had developed a close relationship and through him the appointment was arranged. A few days later they called me from the former prime minister’s office and told me he should have his ID with him. Frouzis came to the office having with him the wheeled suitcase he used. He asked me to prepare a non-paper with the demands he would make at the meeting with Mr. Samaras. When I opened the suitcase I saw bundles of money inside the bag. To my surprise… I placed the suitcase in the trunk. Later he called me and asked me to inform Mr. Samaras’s secretary to facilitate his entry into the Maximos Mansion, and so the car entered the Maximos Mansion. When he returned he opened the bag and took out some documents and the money was not there. It was empty. He gave me a document from Mr. Samaras that referred him to Mr. Staikouras,” said the defendant, who then received a “shower” of questions from the president and prosecutor about this claim.
President: When you testify about a suitcase reaching the prime minister, it is very serious.
Defendant: My purpose was not to initiate prosecution, I have no grudge against them. I just wanted to say it to get it off my chest.
President: What you say was contradictory to saying that a suitcase entered the Maximos Mansion.
Defendant: It is serious… I was an eyewitness in three meetings with Adonis Georgiadis. Once Frouzis said I will go by to leave the envelope. We went to the ministry. I was in the meeting and saw the envelope that was given in front of me to a secretary… And a second time an envelope was given in my presence at the Ministry of Health. The third time Frouzis went in alone, he went inside and gave the envelope. 70, 50, 20 were the bundles of money that went into the envelope when we left Novartis. It was clearly money transfer. It was the so-called win-win relationship. The same relationship existed between the company and Giannis Stournaras.
Mrs. Maraggeli in her testimony also emphasized that the parent company channeled “a large amount to all departments. It was like an octopus… So that the Harvard project program would be executed. According to what Frouzis said, all this happened… I was not present with Samaras but when he returned he told me they were delivered and he returned satisfied.”
President: Why would he trust you so much?
Defendant: I was a trusted person for him.
What she testified about Giannis Stournaras’s wife and Andreas Loverdos
About Giannis Stournaras’s wife, the former secretary of K. Frouzis said that “she came to the office and I had heard her tell Frouzis to tell Giannis whatever you want.”
About Andreas Loverdos she mentioned that “the relationship was built step by step through Maniadakis and Manias. In mid-2011 when there was the big goal to get two major drugs on the market, money was given through Voulkidis. I was not present. He himself told me that the money was given, the goal was achieved. Because Frouzis always trumpeted his goals because he was judged by them.”
Anastasia Maraggeli on Mario Salmas and Dimitris Avramopoulos
About Mario Salmas the defendant said he was a peculiar case, noting that Konstantinos Frouzis when leaving the office called him “ungrateful and their relations were disturbed because he had become attached to another company.”
Also, about Dimitris Avramopoulos she said that according to what Konstantinos Frouzis had told her “two hundred thousand euros were given for the H1N1 vaccines. I was not present. He himself told me he delivered them. And here it was done with a suitcase. Here he had told me the amount. For Mr. Samaras he didn’t tell me the amount, but it was substantial.”
