Siemens,
Daimler, Rheinmetall, the cream of German industry, have been mired
in cases of alleged corruption in Greece, the country that Berlin has
repeatedly admonished for the parlous state of its economy.
No date has
been set yet for 19 former executives of German engineering group
Siemens to appear in Greek court, but it is expected to be one of the
biggest financial trials of the decade in Greece.
More than 60
people in total are being investigated for corruption in the case
that US watchdog CorpWatch has labelled "the greatest corporate
scandal in Greece's postwar history."
Bavaria-based
Siemens, whose links to Greece go back to the 19th century, is
suspected of having greased the palms of various officials to clinch
one of the country's most lucrative contracts -- the vast upgrade of
the Greek telephone network in the late 1990s.
Overall,
Siemens allegedly spent 70 million euros on bribes in Greece,
according to Greek judicial sources.
The
investigation is now in its ninth year with a case brief over 2,300
pages long.
Contacted by
AFP, a Siemens spokesman at company headquarters in Munich said: "We
don't comment on that case."
Among those
suspected of corruption is the group's former point man in Greece,
Michalis Christoforakos.
But the
62-year-old, who holds dual Greek and German citizenship and at the
height of his influence rubbed elbows with the ensemble of Greece's
political elite, is unlikely to face trial.
Christoforakos
fled Greece for Germany in 2009, and German justice has refused to
extradite him, arguing that the statute of limitations covering his
alleged activities has lapsed.
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