Greek ex-minister linked to bribery case

Wednesday, April 20, 2011 12:01 PM By dwi

MUNICH, Germany, April 20 (UPI) -- Teutonic prosecutors are targeting a past Hellenic accumulation rector in a immorality enquiry involving the understanding of quaternary Teutonic Type 214 submarines to Greece.

Prosecutors in city verify that Akis Tsohatzopoulos, the Hellenic accumulation rector from 1996-2000 acknowledged bribes in a deal involving quaternary submarines built by Teutonic consort Ferrostaal, the weekly news magazine Der Spiegel reports.

Tsohatzopoulos strongly denied the allegations.

"I have never asked for or received money or another advantages in unification with the understanding of submarines to Greece," he told Der Spiegel.

The city prosecutors have named Tsohatzopoulos in unification with proceedings they launched against two past Ferrostaal top managers. The immorality housing affects hundreds of millions of dollars in kickbacks to get contracts in Ellas and Turkmenistan.

The Ferrostaal deal for the subs, built by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft, was secured after kickback payments to individual polity and military officials, with a momentous sum also success up in the hands of Tsohatzopoulos, Der Spiegel cites the prosecution's charge artefact as saying. Tsohatzopoulos has been a subject of unrelated immorality inquiries in Greece.

The country's underway accumulation minister, Evangelos Venizelos, terminal period accused Teutonic companies including Siemens, Ferrostaal and its past parent MAN as encouraging corruption.

It would be credulous to conceive that Teutonic arms sales are free from bribery, an expert old with the business said terminal year.

"It's not extraordinary that major goods deals are linked to felony payments and that's true for the arms business as it is for most bounteous goods industries," said Otfried Nassauer, director of the songster Information Center for Trans-Atlantic Security, a security think tank. "If a sub costs 500 meg euros ($725 million), then it's easy to conceal a few millions here and there."

There are rumors that Teutonic companies oversubscribed sub profession to South Africa when it was ease under an embargo. It is also questionable that grownup managers of Teutonic and land companies received felony payments for arms deals with South Africa.

Germany is digit of the world's major arms exporters. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the country is No. 3 in the orbicular market, trumped only by country and the United States.

Companies including ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, Rheinmetall and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann develop high-quality submarines, ships, bulletproof vehicles and tanks. And European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co., a multinational giant producing individual models of airplanes and helicopters, has a strong Teutonic profile.


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