On November 1st, Greek journalist Kostas Vaxevanis was finally acquitted by an Athens court of charges of violation of privacy and data protection laws, brought after the magazine he edits, Hot Doc, published a list of the names of more than 2,000 wealthy Greek individuals and companies with secret bank accounts in Switzerland.
He faced a maximum five-year jail sentence and the possibility of crippling suits for damages by those named.
The charges were thrown out after Vaxevanis’s arrest had caused an outcry both in Greece and abroad, the case highlighting allegations of corruption of members of the Greek government, past and present, which took no action in investigating the list that was originally given to them in October 2010.
Hot Doc published the list, which includes two former ministers, on October 27th, and its print run of 100,000 copies (instead of its average 23,000) quickly sold out. That Saturday evening, the offices of the magazine were raided by police and Vaxevanis was arrested the following day.
The document, which has become known as the ‘Lagarde list’, was part of a much longer list of secret bank accounts held at a branch of the HSBC bank in Geneva, and which was originally passed to the French, British and German authorities in 2008 by Hervé Falciani, a former employee of the bank. Falciani has said he was acting out of his duty as a citizen after realizing that the accounts were used to avoid taxes (see more here).
The list of 2,059 Greek account holders was originally passed to the authorities in Athens two years ago by then-French finance minister Christine Lagarde, now head of the International Monetary Fund, but no investigation was launched. The current Greek finance minister, Yannis Stournaras, even claimed the list had been lost.
Vaxevanis, editor of Hot Doc, a fortnightly investigative magazine with a staff of ten and launched six months ago, said he received the list from an anonymous source via the post. He has stressed that the list is not in itself proof of tax fraud, which can only be established by a proper investigation, and explained that he decided to publish the list because of the “dangerous” controversy government inaction had created among a population suffering some of the most draconian austerity measures ever seen in post-WWII Europe. “Speculation over the issue was becoming dangerous,” he said. “This was a document circulating for two years. It might have been used for political and economic pressures over people.”
Shortly before last Thursday’s court hearing, Vaxevanis gave the following interview to Amélie Poinssot, in which he explains in further detail why he decided to publish the list, who is on it and what the affair says about the state of journalism in Greece.
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Mediapart: Why did you decide to publish this list?
Kostas Vaxevanis: I was only doing my job as a journalist. As Orson Welles said, everything that contributes to the revelation of the truth, which others try to hide, is journalism, everything else is public relations. Two ministers had the ‘Lagarde list’ in their hands. Instead of passing it on to the authorities for investigation and the truth to be established, that is, to know whether it really included tax fraudsters or simply people who legally placed deposits abroad, they began by playing a very grave game, a totally hypocritical one. They even declared before a parliamentary commission that they had lost it. As if it was some ordinary CD from a shop in the street. But all of that is a lie, because we got hold of this list.
Mediapart: Contrary to what public opinion expected, there were very few names of politicians on the list.
K.V.: That’s right, but if you look closely you will find their friends, people who support them, people who they go out with and dine with, the people who they help set up companies. You find, for example, the name of the Bobolas family, which owns the Mega [television] channel, the newspaper Ethnos, the newspaper Imerissia, and several radio stations. They have also one of the principle construction businesses. It is this which got the contract for the Ethniki motorway, [and] the toll system.
There is also the name of Margellos, a friend of the brother of [former Greek socialist prime minister] George Papandreou and a friend of [former finance minister, now environment minister] Giorgos Papakonstantinou. There are also ship owners, like Lamaras for example, who went bankrupt in Greece and who has now been found to have money abroad. There are also numerous companies that received bank loans in Greece and who then placed the money abroad, some of them companies that have not paid their employees for months.
This idea that it would be a list of political figures is something the politicians themselves created, willingly. They began by leaking names of politicians to create the idea of ‘everyone’s rotten’. A populist method. The public heard what it wanted to hear. The aim in all that was to protect the true guilty, and to put pressure on those whose names really figured in the list. The public interest doesn’t interest these politicians who had the list in their hands. What interests them is their own political survival.
Mediapart: How did you get hold of the list?
C.V.: We received a posted [envelope] with a memory stick inside and a letter explaining that it contained the ‘Lagarde list’, currently available to political figures who are using it for blackmail purposes. We don’t know who sent us this. We first had to check the authenticity of the document. With my team, we made checks with several of the people named in the list. I was also in contact with someone who had been in possession of the list, and we crossed the information. It was the same list.
Mediapart: Isn’t it dangerous to publish a list of names?
K.V.: The real danger is the following: If there is no justice in Greece today, if those who have money and illegally placed it outside Greece are not taxed, then those who are hungry, and who until now respect the law, will begin to commit murder. That is the danger. Not the publication of a list that some in authority hid, nor to say ‘carry out an investigation, and in five months we will know who among them have been doing illegal things. That is catharsis.
Mediapart : HSBC is one bank among so many others. Is there not another list, are there not other Greeks with foreign bank accounts?
K.V.: In all, it is estimated that 13 billion euros were transferred [from Greece] into foreign bank accounts these past ten years. The ‘Lagarde list’ contains accounts that totalled, when it was drawn up, two billion euros. It is certain that there are other lists, other banks. According to my information, the HSBC bank was used to move these funds around. It wasn’t a savings bank. The invested funds are probably found elsewhere. The ‘Lagarde list’ is only the tip of the iceberg.
Mediapart: Is your arrest a sign that journalism in Greece is endangered?
K.V.: Yes, I think so. Journalism has always had lots of problems in Greece. On the one hand, for years journalists have taken themselves to be a part of [the system of] power and maintain relations with one minister or another, one MP or another, in order to be well placed in the circle of power. On the other hand, the media are all in debt with the banks. There is an attempt to silence independent voices. There are people, for example, who advised me not to publish the list, telling me that this one or that one is a friend. We are governed by a system in which are dovetailed politicians, companies, banks and journalists. Some do illegal things, others devise laws to cover for them, and there is no media organization there to reveal this, because they are fed and paid by the others.
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- This interview was originally conducted in Greek.
English version: Graham Tearse