It is now final and irrevocable. The president of ELAM Christos Christou will participate as a member in the sessions of the Defense Committee having the right to vote. The Parliamentary Selection Committee, after studying yesterday the objection of the chairman of EDEK and chairman of the Defense Committee Marinos Sizopoulos, and the arguments he proposes for the exclusion of Christos from the said parliamentary committee, unanimously decided to reject it as it is not legitimized by Rules of Procedure of the Parliament to decide such a thing. Therefore, Mr. Sizopoulos has two options: either to compromise with the presence of the president of ELAM, or to resign from the chairmanship of the Defense Committee. However, tomorrow, Thursday, the Parliamentary Defense Committee meets for the first time in the presence of the Minister of Defense and the head of the Armed Forces and it is questionable how the two of them will coexist, who yesterday had a new round of confrontation, indicating to each other that he had to be in jail!
In particular, Marinos Sizopoulos insists on the validity of his allegations against the president of ELAM when he was a bodyguard of the founder and president of the neo-Nazi organization Golden Dawn in Athens, Nikos Michaloliakos, to be accused of illegal possession of firearms and sentenced to prison. He even claimed that Christou appealed and after he was rejected, he redeemed his sentence. Sizopoulos stated that he would ask the Parliament to formally contact the Greek judiciary to confirm the relevant information. The president of ELAM denied the accusations, but diligently avoided referring to the disputed period in his yesterday's appearances on television panels. He did not answer the persistent questions of colleagues directly on the issue of possession of weapons and conviction. He was, however, a liar for the works and days of Mr. Sizopoulos. According to the president of ELAM, the one who should have been in prison is not himself but the president of EDEK, who, as he complained, is charged with criminal offenses. Christou specifically referred to the illegal import of medicines – Botox, but also to the write-off of a loan of almost € 1 million from the company Taxan Properties Developers ltd with which Marinos Sizopoulos is associated. It should be noted that for the Botox case a police investigation was carried out in the office of the president of EDEK and by decision of the former Attorney General the case was not brought to justice.
The Golden Dawn
During yesterday's session of the Selection Committee, the parliamentary representative of AKEL George Loukaidis asked the Speaker of the Parliament Mr. Annita Dimitriou to send a letter to the Attorney General asking to investigate the relations of ELAM and its executives with the criminal organization. The issue will be raised at a meeting of party leaders for a decision. It should be noted that AKEL also asked the former Attorney General to investigate the relations between ELAM and Chrysi Avgi, without, however, according to Mr. Loukaidis, the investigation of the case proceeding.
The case of Themistocles
The Parliamentary Ethics Committee of the Parliament unanimously decided yesterday that there is at first sight a case against the ELAM MP Andreas Themistokleous for the unprovoked verbal attack he unleashed against the parliamentary colleague of the 8th Ecological Movement. 2021. As stated immediately after the session, the Speaker of the Parliament, Mrs. Annita Dimitriou, “Mr. Themistokleous will be informed in writing about the findings of the committee and will be invited to submit his views within seven days of receiving the letter.”
They “steal” issues
The chairman of the Interior Committee and AKEL MP Aristos Damianou, in his letter to the Speaker of Parliament yesterday, complained that the Ad Hoc Committee for the Study of the Demographic Problem, chaired by ELAM MP Linos Papagiannis, are registered or discussed in the Committee on Home Affairs. Such as, for example, issues concerning asylum seekers, foreign workers and so on. Mr. Damianou requested the intervention of Ms. Dimitriou in order to address the issue as soon as possible, in order to delimit the responsibilities of the Ad Hoc Committees.
