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A new investigation to establish the role of former Prime Minister George Papandreou’s brother Andrikos in the case of CDS insurances on Greek government bonds was launched by the economic prosecutor Grigoris Peponis.

His order was issued at a time when it was obvious that the case would be sent to the archive, "for lack of evidence proving the commission of illegal acts," as the prosecutor of the Athens District Court Aris Koreas had ruled.

Now, he must send a request for judicial cooperation to the authorities in Switzerland, where the head office of the investigated investment fund is located. The aim is to establish:

- the post Andrikos Papandreou held in the fund in the period 2009 - 2010 and what was his responsibility in the process of making and implementing the decisions

- whether the fund bought insurances on Greek government bonds

- whether the Greek Post Bank sold insurances to the specific fund

- whether the insurance deals were the product of inside information to the fund.

After collecting the data, as ordered by Grigoris Peponis, the prosecutor will hand them over to experts from the economic police or from the authority prosecuting economic crimes. They, in turn, will investigate the data and their report will indicate how the case will proceed.

The second part of the investigation by prosecutor Koreas is related with complaints filed in court on the existence of an organized plan of speculators against Greece. In April 2010, a lawyer and an economist filed a claim against an unknown perpetrator - an investment fund, a financial institution, a credit rating agency and other similar companies. They claimed in the complaint that someone had speculated on the economic data of Greece to gain huge amounts of money.

The investigation of the CDS insurances was one of the cases for which the economic prosecutor Grigoris Peponis and his deputy Spyros Mouzakitis had complained of being subject to pressures and had even submitted written resignations. According to them, the former Justice Minister Miltiadis Papaioannou, the general secretary of the department and the prosecutors of supreme courts had urged them to give the case a priority over other cases, leaving doubts of possible intervention in it. The results of an investigation held by the deputy prosecutor of the Supreme Court proved that there had been no such pressures. Sources claim that on 22 December last year, Grigoris Peponis said that the case was in a "procedural deadlock."

Following these developments and especially the media fuss, the economic prosecutor has refused to send the case into the archive after receiving the report of prosecutor Aris Koreas. Then, he even asked the deputy prosecutor of the Supreme Court to exclude him from the ratification process. The competent judicial council, however, rejected Grigoris Peponis’ request, ruling, "The prosecutor is independent and not subservient to influence." Thus, the economic prosecutor had to give his opinion on the case of government bond insurances and then, he has ordered the start of a new investigation.

GRReporter wrote about the case earlier this year when the independent deputy then and now leader of Independent Greeks Panos Kamenos had seriously accused the former prime minister and his brother Andrikos Papandreou of staking on Greece’s bankruptcy and of intentionally leading the country in this direction.