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Panos Kammenos is obliged to pay a total compensation of 50,000 euros for moral damages plus interest to Andrikos Papandreou, who was acquitted by the three members of the Athens Court of Appeal.
The court was summoned to consider in second instance the trials of Andrikos Papandreou against Mr. Kammenos, who had publicly denounced the brother of the former prime minister for alleged involvement in CDS (risk insurance), as a result of which he allegedly benefited from the bankruptcy of the country.
The judges completely acquitted Mr. Papandreou, while deciding that each time Mr. Kammenos repeats his accusations, he will pay Mr. Papandreou 2,000
The lawsuits were filed in May 2011 immediately after the allegations against Papandreou were made public.
In the first lawsuit, Papandreou claimed that the then ND deputy Panos Kammenos “illegally and guiltily insulted his personality by making false accusations about him, which the defendant included in an interview he gave on May 19, 2011 on a radio station of radio and requested a monetary compensation for moral damages amounting to 1 million euros.
However, the court of first instance dismissed the claim and even ordered the brother of the former prime minister to pay court costs of 20,000 euros to Panos Kammenos.
Andrikos Papandreou sued Panos Kammenos for the second time, denouncing that “he once again insulted his personality in an illegal and guilty manner by making false accusations about him, as well as insulting and threatening phrases that the accused included in his statements to the press, the internet and in radio stations. ” This time he claimed financial compensation for moral damage of 300,000 euros.
In the second claim, the court partially accepted Mr. Papandreou’s allegations and awarded him compensation of € 30,000 plus legal interest.
Both parties appealed in second instance, with Mr. Papandreou appealing and Mr. Kammenos counterattacking.
What the Court of Appeal decided
The judges of the Court of Appeals state in their decision that during Mr. Kammenos affirmed that Mr. Papandreou participated as a partner in the foreign companies IJ Partners SA and Unigestion SA.
Kammenos even linked the companies to the purchase of CDS from the Postal Savings Bank in 2009, claiming that the transaction was made due to internal information from Andrikos Papandreou about the impending bankruptcy and Greece’s appeal to the IMF. Therefore, affirms the court, “the value of the CDs would increase enormously with the corresponding economic benefit of these companies and consequently of the same and future loss of the Postal Savings Bank that held the Greek State bonds”.
Mr. Kammenos stated that Andrikos Papandreou “tried through the CDS to profit from the bankruptcy of the country he knew”. This is clear from the content of the interviews, publications and statements of the accused that were the subject of a second action against him, although in some of them the reference of the accused to the participation of the applicant in the CDS was not entirely direct but was made in the form of suspicion, insinuation or question, but still maintaining its accusatory character against the plaintiff ”.
The court notes that Mr. Kammenos’ allegations were false since “it turned out that the plaintiff had nothing to do with the purchases of CDS from the Postal Savings Bank, as they had nothing to do with the companies IJ Partners and Unigestion that since the principle denied this claim. ” .
According to the judges, Mr. Kammenos was unaware of the falsehood of his allegations, but was mistakenly convinced that the companies had indeed purchased the CDS from the Postal Savings Bank and that Mr. Papandreou was their partner and involved in the transactions.
However, the court notes that “his conviction was not justified in view of his long parliamentary experience and studies as an economist and therefore he was negligent (negligently) ignored the falsehood of his allegations since the presentation of these allegations was not based on investigation and in fact such that it is proportional to the seriousness of the content of its allegations, neither was it based on the corresponding data in its possession nor the projection of these allegations continued and even with greater intensity, although its categorical refutation was mediated by the plaintiff and the alleged purchasing companies “.
The court in its decision also refers to the allegations of Mr. Kammenos against Mr. Papandreou and his family, which, as he himself states, show “the purpose of insulting the plaintiff, with characterizations such as gang, cosa nostra, lamogia.” In fact, the statements even concealed threats against Andrikos Papandreou’s brother, George Papandreou, who was then prime minister.
The defendant’s statements also contained threats against the plaintiff that worried the latter and in particular the expressions “we will do the trial under his house”, “we are many”, “they will also appear before the popular justice”, which could be perceived by some of the addressees of these statements as an invitation to evade the judicial process and the occurrence of arbitrary violent acts against the plaintiff.
The Court of Appeals ruled that based on the evidence the illicit and guilty nature of the injury to the personality of Mr. Papandreou, who suffered non-pecuniary damage, is established. Therefore, you must be awarded a compensation of 10,000 euros and 40,000 euros for the first and second lawsuit respectively.
In addition to the compensation, Mr. Kammenos must pay the legal interest for the service for both the first claim, which was filed on 8.6.2011, and the second, which was filed on 11.21.2012. You are also required to pay a total of 4,700 euros in court costs.
