PASOK-KINAL MPs Milena Apostolaki, Apostolos Panas and Georgios Nikitiadis, who are members of the Commission of Inquiry into the Tempe tragedy, made a joint statement.
As they report, the course of the committee so far – with the sole responsibility of the majority – is in the exact opposite direction from that of searching for the causes that caused the accident and respecting the memory of the dead.
“Respecting the memory of the 57 dead from the tragic crime of Tempe and the pain of their families, as well as the search for the causes that caused the accident, should be the sole guiding principle of the Parliament’s Investigative Committee. On the contrary, the course of the committee with the sole responsibility of the majority so far is in a completely opposite direction.
“The way in which the meetings of the Commission of Inquiry have progressed since November 23, 2023, the content and style of the confrontation on the part of the representatives of the governing majority and the methodical exclusion of critical persons from witnesses, vindicates in a sad way our initial placement” they add.
“Our position is known: From the beginning we proposed the establishment of a Special Parliamentary Committee to carry out a preliminary examination, which, after the European Prosecutor’s report was sent to the Parliament, would investigate whether former Ministers, in the exercise of their duties, committed criminal offenses, so that in in this case the Parliament has the authority to prosecute”.
The three MPs then underline that “the acceptance of the KKE’s proposal for the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry by the New Democracy and everything that has followed since then clearly proves that it was from the sly”.
“We had warned that the direction of the Commission of Inquiry and the abusive exercise of the rights of the governing majority lead to a methodical cover-up of the real causes of the crime.”
And they continue:
“The recent meetings and the treatment of important witnesses have been revealing as to the intentions of the majority.
“The appearance of the former minister, Mr. Karamanlis, in the committee almost as an accuser, the acceptance by the Bureau of the request of the witness Mrs. Rogaku, deputy director of the National Transparency Authority, to answer our questions with a memorandum the next day and the late summons of Mr. Agorastos, with the result that behind his capacity as a defendant he did not answer whose orders he was carrying out when they were setting up the scene of the crime, highlight the method of cover-up.
“The rapporteur of the majority announced today the end of the work of the committee by refusing once again to consent to the summons to the committee of essential witnesses, whose testimony would contribute to the disclosure of the truth and whom we have repeatedly proposed together with other parties of the opposition.
“It has now become absolutely clear from the course of the committee’s meetings that the governing majority is using its numerical superiority abusively with the sole purpose of not investigating any criminal responsibilities that burden persons connected to it, but even the subjective political responsibilities.
“If the purpose of the Commission of Inquiry is to investigate the truth for the justice of the victims and their families and also to prevent another such tragedy in the future, we should all act as advocates of the truth and not as defenders of an overt attempt to hide and covering up responsibilities.
“We had emphasized in every direction from the first moment that we will not tolerate such practices. We refuse to condone this practice. The majority is driving the committee’s work to a dead end, and we refuse to engage in methods of concealing the truth.
“In the name of both the memory of the victims and the rendering of justice, our institutional responsibility and above all our conscience, impose our withdrawal from the Commission of Inquiry denouncing this blatant attempt at a methodical cover-up”.
