Email-gate: Prosecutor seeks conviction for Asimakopoulos and Stavrianouldakis
The prosecutor recommended conviction for the former New Democracy MEP and the former general secretary of the Interior Ministry for breach of official secrecy and GDPR violations.
Prosecution recommendation of guilt for two of the four defendants in email-gate
The prosecutor of the Three-Member Misdemeanour Court of Athens, Aemilia Sophia Meri, recommended the conviction of former New Democracy MEP Anna Michel Asimakopoulos and former general secretary of the Interior Ministry Michalis Stavrianouldakis, according to reports by the Newspaper of Editors. The recommendation covers all the charges against them: breach of official secrecy and violation of the law on personal data.
The case concerns the leak of electronic addresses of diaspora Greeks and the sending of pre-election material ahead of the 2024 European elections. The file included names, voter registration numbers, mobile phone numbers and email addresses.
"They knew very well what they were doing"
The prosecutor cited the political experience of the two defendants to establish intent. "They knew very well what they were doing," Ms Meri stressed in her address. Asimakopoulos, as a lawyer, was aware of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) — a fact that also emerges from her own defence. Stavrianouldakis, for his part, was familiar with the procedures provided for accessing files such as the one at the centre of the case.
The prosecutor identified intent in Asimakopoulos's strategic moves during the pre-election period, particularly in relation to the promotion of postal voting — the reason to which the search for the specific file is attributed. Despite the defences filed on 2 and 3 June, the two defendants failed to convince the prosecutor. According to her recommendation, both were in a position to understand that this was not a simple internal member list, but electoral lists of diaspora with personal data.
"They acted as messengers," the other two defendants
Regarding the other two defendants, Menios Koromelas, former organisational secretary of the New Democracy's Self-Government and Crisis Management, and Nikos Theodoropolos, former general secretary of the party's Diaspora affairs, Ms Meri took a more lenient stance. "They acted as messengers," the prosecutor characterised the two intermediaries of the file.
According to the factual circumstances presented by the prosecutor, Koromelas sent the file to Theodoropolos on 23 June 2023. The latter transmitted it to Asimakopoulos in January 2024, shortly before the campaign for postal voting began. The prosecution recommendation acquits them of the charge of breach of official secrecy, while finding them guilty of violation of the law on personal data. No intent or harmful intention was found in their actions, since — according to the prosecutor — they could not have known of the subsequent use of the file, especially since Theodoropolos had requested it for the purpose of conducting exit polls of diaspora voters.
Source: Efimerida ton Syntakton