Menios Koutsogiorgas

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Agamemnon Koutsogiorgas , mostly Menios Koutsogiorgas , ( Greek Αγαμέμνων Κουτσόγιωργας ; * May 10, 1922 in Rodini; † April 18, 1991 in Athens ) was a Greek lawyer and politician of the Panellinio Sosialistiko Kinima (PASOK) party.

During the PASOK government from 1981 to 1989, Koutsogiorgas was one of the most powerful cabinet members as Minister of the Interior and Justice, and was for a long time acted as Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou's successor. Because of his involvement in the financial scandal involving Georgios Koskotas and his Bank of Crete , he had to resign and was charged. Koutsogiorgas collapsed in the courtroom during the trial on April 11, 1991 and died a week later.

Life

Koutsogiorgas was born in 1922 in the village of Rodini in the Achaia province of the Peloponnese . During the occupation of Greece during World War II, Koutsogiorgas was active in the Greek resistance group Omiros and was arrested by Italian occupation forces. He studied law in Athens and graduated in 1945. In the same year he became a police officer in the Athens City Police. He worked there for seven years before resigning in 1952 to work as a lawyer in his own law firm. In 1958 he received a postgraduate degree in public law from the University of Paris .

In the post-war period he became a well-known lawyer and was close to Georgios Papandreou , chairman of the Liberal Party of Greece (later Enosis Kendrou ). After the discovery of the Aspida conspiracy in 1965, he was the defender of Georgios Papandreou's son Andreas Papandreou .

During the Greek military dictatorship from 1967 to 1974, Koutsogiorgas participated early on in attempts to organize armed resistance against the regime. He was arrested and detained after guns and radio transmitters were discovered in his home. After his release, he was arrested again in 1970 and detained for a while while being interrogated by the notorious Greek military police.

Political career

As a close friend of Andreas Papandreou, Koutsogiorgas became a founding member of PASOK. In the first parliamentary election after the fall of the military regime, Koutsogiorgas became a member of the Greek parliament for the Achaia prefecture in November 1974 and was re-elected until 1989. In the first PASOK government he became "Minister to the President of the Government" on October 21, 1981. On January 17, 1984 he was appointed Minister of the Interior. He held this office until his resignation before the parliamentary elections on May 9, 1985. In the political crisis in March 1985 about a second term of office of President Konstantinos Karamanlis , he played an important role. Prime Minister Papandreou had promised Karamanlis support for re-election several times, but the party base of PASOK and Koutsogiorgas were strictly against it. In the end, PASOK proposed Judge Christos Sartzetakis for the post, presumably because of the insistence of Koutsogiorgas .

After the PASOK election victory, Koutsogiorgas was again Minister of the Interior on June 5, 1985. When the cabinet was reshuffled on July 26, 1985, he was also responsible for public order until April 25, 1986. He remained Minister of the Interior until February 5, 1987, and became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Justice on September 23, 1987. Koutsogiorgas served as Prime Minister during Papandreou's illness in 1988 and his stay in the UK for bypass surgery from August to September.

During this time, Koutsogiorgas came under increasing criticism from the press and PASOK supporters because of his appearance in the affair of George Koskotas and his banking scandal, because in the summer of 1988 he passed a "secrecy law" in parliament that Koskotas once again the confidentiality of banking secrecy was assured and could thus evade any review. It had previously become known that state-owned companies had to withdraw their funds from large banks and transfer Koskotas' Bank of Crete. There, Koskotas made sure that the government funds did not earn more than two or three percent interest, although bank balances in Greece at that time normally earned interest at 15 percent. The difference was distributed to the politicians. Tax audits were personally prevented by Pasok officials.

But Koutsogiorgas continued to enjoy the support of Papandreou: Although he was forced to resign on November 18, 1988, the office of Vice-President and Minister of Justice, he was again appointed "Minister to the President of the Government". The crisis peaked in March 1989 when tapes of conversations between Koskotas' wife and a Koskotas employee were released by Koskotas himself. The tapes were supposed to show that Koutsogiogras had received two million US dollars in a Swiss bank account because he had "adjusted" the banking secrecy law for Koskotas. Koutsogiorgas denied these claims, accusing Koskotas of attempting to blackmail the government after evading the grip of Greek law and his empire collapsed.

Papandreou survived the vote of confidence in parliament, but Koutsogiorgas submitted his resignation on March 16, 1989. The investigations revealed that a close colleague of Koskotas, I. Matzouranis, who was a former member of the PASOK government and was in contact with Koutsogiorgas, had arranged the opening of a bank account for Koutsogiorgas in Switzerland in autumn 1988. After a few weeks, he made a $ 1.2 million deposit into that account. A few weeks later, Koutsogiorgas, knowing of the deposit, sent the money back to Matzouranis and closed the account. When these events became known in March 1989, Matzouranis claimed that Koutsogiorgas was awaiting payment. Koutsogiorgas, however, stated that the account was opened for personal reasons and that the deposit was an attempt to make him susceptible to blackmail. The details of these events remained unclear because Koutsogiorgas died during the trial.

On May 18, the PASOK Central Committee voted against him as a candidate for the parliamentary elections in Greece in June 1989 pending investigation into the case. On September 27, in a parliamentary vote, Koutsogiorgas was summoned, together with Andreas Papandreou, Dimitris Tsovolas and Giorgos Petsos, to appear before a specially appointed special court that had been set up to investigate the Koskotas scandal. In a measure criticized as exaggerated, 68-year-old Koutsogiorgas was the only one of the defendants to be arrested on October 2, 1990 in Korydallos prison. The move was supported by the new government under Konstantinos Mitsotakis ( Nea Dimokratia ), which a few months earlier had promised in the election campaign to crack down on the corruption of PASOK. Koutsogiorgas immediately appealed the decision and the Athens Court of Appeal released him on January 10, 1991.

The trial began on March 11, 1991 in a politically heated atmosphere and was televised live. Koutsogiorgas' questioning of the prosecutor's witness Ioannis Kamaras (Bank of Greece's chief auditor) revealed many shortcomings in the prosecutor's investigations. On April 11, while interviewing a witness (Stathis Papageorgiou, former deputy head of the Bank of Greece) after a stroke in the courtroom, Koutsogiorgas collapsed seven days later. A large crowd gathered in central Athens for his funeral and protested the proceedings of the special court.

family

Menios Koutsogiorgas was married to Aliki Koutsogiorga with whom he had three children. His brother, Praxitelis (Telis) Koutsogiorgas, was a general in the Greek police.

honors and awards

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b «Κύριε Πρόεδρε… Δεν δύναμαι… να συνεχίσω…» - Ο θάνατος του Μένιου Κουτσόγιωργα στο Ειδικό Δικ , The Caller on March 25, 2020
  2. ↑ Georgios Lakopoulos: Το μυθιστόρημα του ΠΑΣΟΚ . Kastanioti, Athens 1999, ISBN 978-960-469-694-9 , pp. 70-71
  3. ↑ Η γνωστή άγνωστη αντίσταση στη Χούντα , Eleftherotypia , April 21, 1997
  4. ↑ ΚΥΒΕΡΝΗΣH ΑΝΔΡΕA ΠΑΠΑΝΔΡΕΟΥ - Από October 21, 1981 έως June 5, 1985. General Secretariat of the Greek Government, accessed March 25, 2020 .
  5. ↑ a b c d e Απολύστε την Αεροσυνοδό. July 18, 1999, accessed March 25, 2020 .
  6. ↑ a b c d ΚΥΒΕΡΝΗΣH ΑΝΔΡΕA ΠΑΠΑΝΔΡΕΟΥ - Από 5.6.1985 έως 2.7.1989. General Secretariat of the Greek Government, accessed March 25, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Nina Grunenberg: Last consolation in Mimi's arms. Love affair and corruption: Greece turns away from Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou. In: The time . March 24, 1989, accessed March 25, 2020 .
  8. ^ Eleftherotypia , March 23, 1989
  9. ^ To Pontiki , September 3, 1990
  10. ↑ Ελεύθερος με εγγύηση ο Μένιος . Kathimerini , January 11, 1991
  11. ^ Ta Nea , April 22, 1991
personal data
SURNAME Koutsogiorgas, Menios
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Koutsogiorgas, Agamemnon (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greek politician
DATE OF BIRTH May 10, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Rodini
DATE OF DEATH April 18, 1991
Place of death Athens