Greek journalist Vaxevanis, who published names of 2,000 suspected tax evaders, cleared of privacy breach
Kostas Vaxevanis hates being the centre of attention. Moments before taking the stand in one of the most sensational trials in modern Greece on Thursday, the investigative journalist insisted he was not in the business of making news. "My job is simply to tell the news and tell it straight," he averred. "My job is to tell the truth."
Last night, after a trial which lasted just 12 hours, he was vindicated: the court found him not guilty of breaking data privacy laws by publishing the names of more than 2,000 wealthy Greeks believed to be holding Swiss bank accounts.
"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed; everything else is public relations," he told the three-member panel of judges at the start of the session. "As such it was my duty to reveal this list," he continued. "The decision to try me on charges of breaching privacy laws is utterly ridiculous when none of those on the list have filed a complaint about privacy violation."
The list was first handed to Greek authorities in 2010 by the IMF chief Chistine Lagarde, and with tax avoidance a national sport among the rich elite, the failure of successive governments to act on it – at a time when debt-stricken Greece was immersed in its worst economic crisis since the second world war – has raised suspicions that corrupt vested interests ran to the top of society.
"It is quite clear the political system did everything not to publish this list," he told the Guardian during a recess. "If you look at the names, or the offshore companies linked to certain individuals, you see that these are all friends of those in power. Phoney lists had also begun to circulate. It was time for the truth to be told," said the reporter, who had faced up to two years in jail and a fine of €30,000 (£24,000) if convicted.
"We live in a country where on the one hand tax evasion is rampant and on the other people are eating out of rubbish dumpsters because of salary cuts, because they can't make ends meet."
Three years after the eruption of Europe's worst crisis in decades, Vaxevanis has emerged as an unwitting crusader – a defender of truth in an environment that has become ever more electrified by the perceived menaces of malfeasance and mendacity.
Five days after a public prosecutor ordered the 46-year-old's arrest – dispatching special agents to seize the journalist in a country whose justice system has almost never moved with such alacrity – there are few who do not agree with Vaxevanis that his trial has been "politically motivated".
"In my 40 years' experience as a lawyer, this whole episode has been very unusual, to say the least," opined Nikos Kostantopouloulos, one of the reporter's three lawyers. "We have a schizophrenic situation where on the one hand a journalist is being penalised for revealing a document in the interests of informing public opinion and, on the other hand, the parliament itself is saying the handling of the list should be investigated."
From the outset, said Konstantopoulos, a former leftist politician, the case had defied the principles of justice. "Right down to the way the prosecutor so hastily issued the charge sheet without even bothering to stamp it, it has been handled very badly," he said.
With ordinary Greeks hammered by a fifth year of recession that has left growing numbers struggling with unemployment and poverty, the case has ignited widespread fury. The list, reprinted on Monday by the leading daily Ta Nea, includes politicians, businessmen, shipping magnates, doctors, lawyers – a far cry from those who have borne the brunt of relentless austerity measures on the margins of society.
"While we have been paying our taxes, some out there have been stashing their loot away in Switzerland, not being taxed at all," said Petros Hadzopoulos, a retiree, who had come to the court to get a glance of the journalist he called "his new, best hero". Hot Doc, which normally has a circulation of about 25,000, sold 100,000 last week.
For the prime minister, Antonis Samaras, and his leftist coalition partners, the affair has fast become a political embarrassment, one the fragile alliance could do without as the crisis-hit country fights to convince international creditors at the EU and IMF that it has met the conditions of qualifying for further aid.
As Athens teeters once again on the brink of bankruptcy – its public coffers set to run dry in less than a month – Vaxevanis's arrest has highlighted the pitfalls of press freedom in a nation where this week alone two anchors on state television were also fired for publicly "undermining" a minister.
The presenters' "crime" had been to question the failure of the public order minister Nikos Dendias to act on a threat to sue the Guardian for publishing a story alleging police torture of protestors that he said had "defamed Greek democracy".
For those crammed into the packed court, it was clear that in the birthplace of freedom, democracy itself was at stake. Thursday's often shambolic proceedings, which frequently saw the panel's presiding female magistrate thumping the bench as she demanded "silence" under a statue of Jesus Christ, included court-appointed interpreters being unable to translate with one confusing friend for french and absurd with illegal.
"I am very pained to have to be here in Greece the mother of democracy explaining the obvious," said Jim Boumela who, as president of the International Federation of Journalists, flew in from London to testify at the trial. "This is what I have to do in countries like Uganda," he said appearing at the stand before a wine-coloured Bible.
"Kostas should be applauded for what he has done. It's a very worrying turn that journalists are being suppressed in Greece – and I think we are going to see more of it," said Boumela.
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