Prosecutor seeks guilty verdict for ND MP, ex-ministry official over ’email gate’
A prosecutor in Athens has recommended a guilty verdict for a ruling New Democracy party lawmaker and the former secretary-general of Interior Ministry over the leak of emails belonging to diaspora Greeks, a scandal known as “email gate.”
The scandal concerns the unlawful use of personal data from the Interior Ministry’s special electoral register of Greeks living abroad. Former MEP Anna-Michelle Asimakopoulou was accused of using this data for promotional purposes without proper authorization while canvassing for votes ahead of the June 2024 European parliamentary elections.
Prosecutor Emilia Sophia Meri told the Athens Three-Member Misdemeanor Court that Asimakopoulou and former Interior Ministry Secretary General Michalis Stavrianoudakis should be found guilty of breach of civil service secrets and privacy laws because “they knew very well what they were doing.”
At the same time, she requested the acquittal of the then New Democracy party official for diaspora, Nikos Theodoropoulos, as well as Menios Koromilas, who was then serving as the organizational secretary of Local Government and Crisis Management of the party, for violation of official secrecy, but proposed their guilt for breaking privacy laws.
“The title of the file [that included the leaked emails] makes it immediately recognizable to anyone who read it. The origin of the list is clear. The use of the file by the first two was done without the intention of harming third parties. I believe that they did not even know the use that would be made, and for us to have the intention of harming, they would have to know the use. I believe Koromilas and Theodoropoulos acted as ‘postmen,’” he said.
Backing her recommendation for Stavrianoudakis, the prosecutor said that only employees of the Ministry of Interior and Singular Logic have access to the electoral roll, and Stavrianoudakis had access due to his position. In June 2023, the list was leaked and the electoral roll of expatriates was found in the hands of Koromilas. The latter reported that Stavrianoudakis told him that he would be sent a file to forward to Theodoropoulos.
“No one named another person as the distributor of the file. The defendants claim that they did not have the time to open the file, and Theodoropoulos said that he wanted it for statistical analysis, a fact that was confirmed,” the prosecutor said, adding that the file was requested in writing by Asimakopoulou on January 22, 2024 to solicit the diaspora’s vote.
On March 1, Asimakopoulou sent an email to 25,000 people on the list, informing them about postal voting, which allowed the possibility of unregistering. All the witnesses stated that they were not New Democracy voters so that the party could not have had their information, Meri argued.
“The numerical difference between the list of New Democracy voters and the electoral list is huge. We are talking about 20 times more, we are not talking about a difference of 600 people. ND had approximately 1,200 people and the [leaked] electoral list has 25,000. A person with her experience recognizes that the difference cannot be in the thousands,” she said.
During the trial, the defendants attributed responsibility to the others for the leak of the controversial file.
A total 92 diaspora Greeks have joined in the process on the side of the prosecution. At the trial, they said they had been asked by the Interior Ministry to register their email addresses with other personal data in order to vote from abroad, and subsequently received emails from Asimakopoulou soliciting their support in the election.
Greece’s Personal Data Protection Authority (PDPA) imposed a 400,000-euro fine on the Ministry of Interior and a 40,000-euro fine on New Democracy MEP Anna-Michelle Asimakopoulou for their respective roles in the case, a decision overturned by the Council of State regarding New Democracy.
Kathimerini
