DIKO MEP Marios Matsakis has told reporters that “certain people are trying to destroy me”.
The outspoken MEP currently faces two serious charges and is under investigation by the police. The first involves the suspicion that he was involved in smuggling antique chests from the occupied areas and the other relates to claims that he tried to blackmail a Drug Squad officer, offering to change his testimony in an attempted manslaughter case involving the officer, provided he was paid £10,000.
As part of their investigation into the first charge, police officers have for the past fortnight been removing chests, giant urns (pitharoi) and other artefacts from his home in Pyrga.
Now Matsakis is claiming that the whole investigation against him stems from a “corrupt establishment” that wants to “shut him up and get rid of him both politically and professionally”.
He added: “This whole campaign against me is to make a problem for me, to humiliate me in the eyes of the public and to teach me a lesson.”
Although he didn’t elaborate, Matsakis hinted that the British and Turkish Secret Services could be behind the whole incident.
The investigation comes after the European Parliament lifted Matsakis’ immunity earlier this month, having established that that there was no political motivation to the charges.
“The European Parliament would protect an MEP if it felt that one of its members was the target of a political campaign,” German MEP Jo Leinin told the Cyprus Mail last week.
Police spokesman Demetris Demetriou yesterday said it was not logical for the police to launch an investigation simply because somebody uttered a few words.
“We cannot start investigating something without a proper statement being made. Now if Mr Matsakis really believes that somebody wants to kill him or do him harm, then he is obliged to come to us and make a statement, or at least tell us who he believes wants to get him.”
Meanwhile, the DIKO MEP has dismissed claims that he was smuggling artefacts from the occupied north. Asked by reporters about the objects being seized from his home, Matsakis said a lot of them had been bought from the free areas with the sole intention of one day building a Cultural Heritage Museum.
On Saturday, police seized more chests from his house while 22 pitharoi taken from his house last week were returned and left in his front garden.
Clutching a clipboard and camera, Matsakis was noting down and taking pictures all the items being carried away by plain-clothed police officers last week. Matsakis told reporters on Saturday that some of the items being carried away were “recently made and were gifts and could be bought from any tourist area in Greece. There are other items they wrongly took last week which they fortunately returned back to me today.”
Evi Fiouri, Archaeological Officer at the Department of Antiquities, confirmed that some of the items seized by police had already been returned to the MEP.
Matsakis went insists: “the collection is aimed at saving our cultural heritage and collecting those items is my hobby and my passion. They have not been obtained from the occupied north.”
