believe that anybody in this country that goes to the ministry of defense and would have a budget would not become rich.”
Following the Imia conflict, Greece launched a massive military modernization program, amounting to nearly 17 billion dollars. Over the next decade, Greece bought American fighter jets, German submarines, Russian surface-to-air missiles, Slovak artillery guns, and later on, German panzers, among many other weapons. The splurge meant that between 2002 and 2006, small Greece became the world’s fourth largest arms importer, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Suspicions that Tsochatzopoulos had seized the opportunity to enrich himself off this excess arose in 2004, a few years after he left the defense ministry. That year, he married his second wife, Vasiliki Stamati, who was later described by her family as a humble, smalltown girl, a former employee for the public electric company who would often return to her parents’ village in central Greece to help with chores around the house. The wedding with Tsochatzopoulos that year, though, did not seem a humble affair to most Greeks. It took place in Paris, and the former defense minister arrived at the ceremony in a “shimmering blue Jaguar,” according to media reports. The party was held at the Four Seasons, where the pair also stayed, while other guests complained of having been put up in less luxurious accommodations. This all seemed rather expensive, and Greeks wondered how Tsochatzopoulos could afford such luxuries on a minister’s salary, which alone would make one affluent but not that wealthy. “How did you get rich, Mr. Tsochatzopoulos?” read the headline of an article in the newspaper
Kathimerini
at the time. People were especially bothered by the fact that Tsochatzopoulos was an ostensible socialist who had spoken outagainst “big capital,” and in favor of social justice and solidarity. Now, some reports contended that he and his wife had stayed in the Four Seasons’ 2,630-square-foot, antique-furnished Royal Suite, which according to some rankings was among the top ten or fifteen most expensive hotel rooms in the world. Tsochatzopoulos later said the pair did not stay in an expensive room, and that the media reports were part of an effort to defame him. There were “normal rooms for all people” at the hotel, he said.
Shortly after the wedding, a Greek prosecutor sent parliament case files concerning a couple of Tsochatzopoulos-era armaments purchases, citing information that may have implicated the former minister in wrongdoing. The prosecutor was obliged to submit the files to parliament because, under Greek law, he could not investigate the matter himself. The Greek constitution protects ministers, current and former, from prosecution or investigation on matters relating to the exercise of their duties unless parliament votes to allow it. A special parliamentary committee was therefore formed to carry out a preliminary examination of the deals in question—one for American radar systems critics considered useless and unsuitable for the military’s needs, and the other for Russian surface-to-air missile systems deemed too expensive and marginally functional. The committee released a report on its findings, though its members arrived at widely disparate conclusions—split along political lines—on their significance. Those committee members belonging to the then ruling New Democracy party raised some seemingly pertinent questions. With regard to the Russian missile systems in particular, why had the defense ministry awarded a direct contract to buy twenty-one of them for some 800 million dollars when a Greek military review panel had determined the weapons did not meet the necessary specifications, whereas missile systems from other manufacturers did? Also, what was the role of three companies—Drumilan International Hellas A.E., based in Athens; Drumilan Offset Programme Ltd., based in Cyprus;
Following the Imia conflict, Greece launched a massive military modernization program, amounting to nearly 17 billion dollars. Over the next decade, Greece bought American fighter jets, German submarines, Russian surface-to-air missiles, Slovak artillery guns, and later on, German panzers, among many other weapons. The splurge meant that between 2002 and 2006, small Greece became the world’s fourth largest arms importer, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Suspicions that Tsochatzopoulos had seized the opportunity to enrich himself off this excess arose in 2004, a few years after he left the defense ministry. That year, he married his second wife, Vasiliki Stamati, who was later described by her family as a humble, smalltown girl, a former employee for the public electric company who would often return to her parents’ village in central Greece to help with chores around the house. The wedding with Tsochatzopoulos that year, though, did not seem a humble affair to most Greeks. It took place in Paris, and the former defense minister arrived at the ceremony in a “shimmering blue Jaguar,” according to media reports. The party was held at the Four Seasons, where the pair also stayed, while other guests complained of having been put up in less luxurious accommodations. This all seemed rather expensive, and Greeks wondered how Tsochatzopoulos could afford such luxuries on a minister’s salary, which alone would make one affluent but not that wealthy. “How did you get rich, Mr. Tsochatzopoulos?” read the headline of an article in the newspaper
Kathimerini
at the time. People were especially bothered by the fact that Tsochatzopoulos was an ostensible socialist who had spoken outagainst “big capital,” and in favor of social justice and solidarity. Now, some reports contended that he and his wife had stayed in the Four Seasons’ 2,630-square-foot, antique-furnished Royal Suite, which according to some rankings was among the top ten or fifteen most expensive hotel rooms in the world. Tsochatzopoulos later said the pair did not stay in an expensive room, and that the media reports were part of an effort to defame him. There were “normal rooms for all people” at the hotel, he said.
Shortly after the wedding, a Greek prosecutor sent parliament case files concerning a couple of Tsochatzopoulos-era armaments purchases, citing information that may have implicated the former minister in wrongdoing. The prosecutor was obliged to submit the files to parliament because, under Greek law, he could not investigate the matter himself. The Greek constitution protects ministers, current and former, from prosecution or investigation on matters relating to the exercise of their duties unless parliament votes to allow it. A special parliamentary committee was therefore formed to carry out a preliminary examination of the deals in question—one for American radar systems critics considered useless and unsuitable for the military’s needs, and the other for Russian surface-to-air missile systems deemed too expensive and marginally functional. The committee released a report on its findings, though its members arrived at widely disparate conclusions—split along political lines—on their significance. Those committee members belonging to the then ruling New Democracy party raised some seemingly pertinent questions. With regard to the Russian missile systems in particular, why had the defense ministry awarded a direct contract to buy twenty-one of them for some 800 million dollars when a Greek military review panel had determined the weapons did not meet the necessary specifications, whereas missile systems from other manufacturers did? Also, what was the role of three companies—Drumilan International Hellas A.E., based in Athens; Drumilan Offset Programme Ltd., based in Cyprus;
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