The move of the country’s financial crime prosecution, according to Greek media, opens the way for potential criminal charges against the very witnesses who helped expose the scandal.
The two whistleblowers, previously known by the pseudonyms Aikaterini Kelesi and Maximos Saraphis, have now been identified as Maria Marangeli and Philistor Destempasides. Marangeli, a former secretary to the Novartis CEO in Greece, became a protected witness in 2017, while Destempasides, a former Novartis manager, joined the following year.
The decision to lift their anonymity was made possible by a legislative amendment to Greece’s criminal law that came into force on May 1, which grants prosecutors discretion to disclose witness identities, legal news outlet Dikastiko.gr reported.
The development comes four years after Novartis admitted to violating the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits bribery of foreign officials. The Swiss pharmaceutical giant paid $347 million to settle charges with U.S. authorities over alleged bribes to Greek officials aimed at boosting sales, including influencing drug pricing globally. These practices may have cost Greek taxpayers an estimated 3 billion euros ($3.25 billion) between 2000 and 2015, a period that overlapped with the country’s financial crisis.
Rather than launching a thorough investigation into the Novartis case, the Greek government targeted prosecutors and journalists who uncovered evidence of bribes to politicians and healthcare providers. The fate of a 214 million euros lawsuit against Novartis announced in 2022 by the then Health Minister Thanos Plevris, remains unknown according to the news outlet Efsyn.
Following the unmasking of the whistleblowers, politicians implicated in the case quickly criticized them.
Former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras welcomed the lifting of protections, saying it would “reveal the truth about the Novartis conspiracy.”
“The causes and protagonists of this vileness will be exposed. Here comes the moment of truth,” he added, according to TheToc.gr.
Health Minister Adonis Georgiades, who was linked to suspicious payments, called Marangeli and Destempasides “slanderers” and suggested they were guided by others, adding that they “couldn’t have conceived of such monstrous lies on their own.”
In 2022, a special court acquitted several officials involved in investigating the scandal, including former anti-corruption prosecutor Eleni Touloupaki, who was removed from office after Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s New Democracy party took power in 2019. Prosecutors also dropped charges against journalists accused of criminal association for reporting on the case.
Transparency International ranked Greece 59th out of 180 countries in its 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index, the third-lowest score within the EU.