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Former Greek PM George Papandreou sues "Lagarde list" provider

Xinhua, March 7, 2015 Adjust font size:

Former Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, President of the Socialist International and the Greek Movement of Democrats Socialists party, has sued on Friday in Athens the former HSBC bank analyst Herve Falciani, who brought the so-called 'Lagarde list' to light.

"The reason is that this is the only way to address such slanders which obviously aim at financial gain and publicity to serve interests," a party announcement said on Friday.

In a new book Falciani who in 2008 handed to French authorities data on more than 100,000 HSBC clients from across the globe, claimed that Papandreou was forced to bring the troika to Greece, because his mother allegedly held a secret bank account with 500 million euros (542 million U.S. dollars) in Switzerland. The family has dismissed the allegations from the start.

The allegation about Margaret Papandreou's HSBC bank account had been made three years ago when the list first emerged. Margaret Papandreou sued Greek media and members of the country's Financial Crimes Unit (SDOE) over such reports for defamation two years ago.

In October 2014 following an internal investigation after the lawsuit SDOE acknowledged in an official document that her name was not on the list of 2,000 Greeks with major deposits at an HSBC bank branch in Switzerland.

Stylianos Stassinopoulos, SDOE's Special Secretary until recently, who was among officials sued by Margaret Papandreou, in written asked for forgiveness for the implication in the scandal of suspected tax dodgers, the party announcement stressed on Friday.

The lawsuit was filed as former Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou (2009-2011) was on trial since last week facing charges of document forgery.

Papaconstantinou is accused of erasing the names of three of his cousins from the list that was handed to him in 2010 by current IMF head Christine Lagarde who was France's Finance Minister at the time.

During Friday's proceedings the public prosecutor asked for the confiscation of the computer of the secretary of former Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos who succeeded Papaconstantinou in the office. Endit