By Lefteris Charalampopoulos

January 9 – On 28 December 2016 Giannis Alafouzos, president of Panathinaikos and owner of SKAI TV Station was found guilty by a Greek court, of instigating the journalist Kyriakos Thomaidis to violate Greek legislation regarding the protection of sensitive personal data.

Both were convicted to one year in prison and fined. They had been prosecuted for making public documents from the case file of the ‘Koriopolis’ investigation, in violation of due legal process that forbids documents from an ongoing investigation and penal case to be made public.

This was not the first conviction for Alafouzos and Thomaidis. On 20 December 2016 Alafouzos and Thomaidis were twice found guilty, in two separate decisions, and convicted to 1 year and 4 months imprisonment and €5000 fine in one case and to 1 year imprisonment and €5000 in another. In both cases they had been sued by Olympiakos owner Vaggelis Marinakis.

Thomaidis has also been sentenced in a civil case to pay damages to Marinakis.

There have been restraining orders against making public documents from the ‘Koriopolis’ investigation. Moreover, the Greek High Court has ruled that Thomaidis did not act out of journalistic interest but solely with the intent to insult the president of Olympiakos. Thomaidis was found guilty and could not offer a proper explanation for making public documents from an ongoing penal investigation, violating court orders. Moreover, it was ruled that he was acting under orders from Alafouzos.

The ‘Koriopolis’ investigation (the name refers to the Greek word for ‘bug’ used in wiretapping) has been a major judiciary investigation on accusations for ‘fixed’ football matches. Part of the investigation was the extensive wiretapping of phone conversations of Greek football executives. This material, most of it unrelated to the case under investigation, has been leaked to the press and used in smear campaigns.

Marinakis has already been cleared in the Greek courts of all charges regarding this case.

Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1600349851labto1600349851ofdlr1600349851owedi1600349851sni@o1600349851fni1600349851