The investigative journalist on trial after embarrassing Greece’s political and business elite by publishing the names of 2,000 Greeks with Swiss bank accounts yesterday stuck to his guns, saying his list showed “how sick the system is”.
Speaking from his office in a rundown shopping mall in Athens, Costas Vaxevanis said the list of accounts held by Greeks at branch of HSBCin Geneva encapsulated a deeply corrupt political culture in Greece. “It is a closed system, with politicians, businessmen and their hangers on controlling what happens,” he told the Financial Times as a power outage briefly plunged his office into darkness.
“We acted in the public interest?.?.?.?We know the list is accurate. It refers both to legitimate accounts held by business people and individuals and to others that we believe were used for channelling funds for purposes of tax evasion.”