The court prosecutor handling the appeal against journalist Kostas Vaxevanis has proposed a guilty verdict for the publication of the “Lagarde List” in the Hot Doc magazine he publishes. Mr. Vaxevanis was back on trial, after the prosecution appealed an innocent verdict last year for being “legally incorrect”.
According to the prosecutor the publication of the list constituted a violation of personal information, since the people included in the list did not agree to the publication of their details. The prosecutor further explained that the purpose of trial was not censorship or intimidation, but setting the limits for established rights.
The prosecutor added that his approach would be different if the published data was of individuals in public office and noted that the publication of the list was rather pointless, since the financial prosecutors had a copy 15 days before it was published in Mr. Vaxevanis’ magazine.
The journalist claimed that there was a cover-up under way and that the intention of the list publication was to “reveal the system of corruption that is oppressing the country and is contained in the list”. Mr. Vaxevanis also explained that other countries took advantage of equivalent lists and that he never claimed that the people contained in the list were guilty of tax evasion or other crimes.
