Arms rep to face prosecutors

Weapon system firm representative Panayotis Efstathiou, was one of the persons bribing former director for procurements Antonis Kantas in the period between 1997-2002 has been called to face judicial authorities and provide information as to the extent of his implication in the case.

The defendant will testify after the holidays and will cooperate fully, as his attorney stated, with Gavriel Mallis in order to clear up this case which has been poisoning the country's political life for years.

Panayotis Efstathiou is being accused of bribery and money laundering, and he is the first to be summoned on the basis of evidence sent by German judicial authorities. His offices, in Kolonaki, were raided in August by two German district attorneys and Greek prosecutors Popi Papandreou and Antonis Eleftherianos, yielding abundant material.

As a representative of the German firm Rheinmetall (later renamed Atlas) he was also implicated in evidence obtained through a raid by German officials against the firm's offices in Bremen. "Beneficial" payments to Greek officials, found in company records, total over 18,000,000 euros.