A FORMER Ambassador, accused of indecently assaulting two of his secretaries, yesterday told a Criminal Court that he was the victim of an infatuated and troubled woman.
Former Cypriot Ambassador to Sweden Costas Papadimas faces multiple charges of sexual harassment against two of his secretaries during his term in Stockholm between 2001 and 2005.
He denies the charges, with his lawyer Efstathios Efstathiou accusing one of the secretaries, Alexandra Zioga, 35, of exacting revenge on the Ambassador because he would not leave his wife and two children for her. Efstathiou accused Zioga of conspiring with Embassy diplomat Andreas Kettis, her fiancé Demetris Vasiliou and the other secretary, Sofia Raptidou, in an effort to “destroy the Ambassador”.
Yesterday, the panel of three judges dropped four of the charges, after the defence cited technical points. However, the Chairman of the three-judge bench, Antonis Liatsos, ruled the court would not drop the remaining charges and called the Ambassador to take the stand.
Papadimas yesterday told the court that Zioga had developed “a particular fondness for me”, adding the relationship that followed was a “huge mistake that has made me feel very ashamed for what I did”.
Papadimas said Zioga had fallen for him after seeing a photograph of him posing in a garden in Kenya.
“She would always pay me compliments, such as ‘your hair looks so nice’, ‘I love your aftershave’, ‘I love the little hairs on your fingers’ and ‘you look younger than your years’… We eventually ended up having an affair, and she had become infatuated with me. She then began pressuring me to leave my wife, telling that she didn’t want to play second fiddle any more.”
The Ambassador said the two would fondle each other after work hours in the Embassy.
But it wasn’t long, claimed the Ambassador, before he started realising that his fling was turning into a nightmare.
“She hounded and continuously begged me to break up with my wife. I told her I couldn’t do that, and it wasn’t long before people around the office started to talk after she began making it look obvious about our affair. She would sometimes come into my office, close the door behind her and then touch me around my body and stroke my hair… I later realised I had got mixed up with a woman with an obsession and psychological problems. I carried on the affair because I was scared of her telling my wife.”
The whole situation came crashing down on the Ambassador when he was set to be transferred to Brussels. His wife had by that time learnt of the affair and had threatened to report Zioga to the Foreign Ministry.
Zioga had reportedly told him upon learning he would be ending their affair: “if I can’t have you, then no woman can. You’ll see what I’ll do to you.”
Earlier yesterday, Efstathiou had completed the first part of the defence’s summing up, highlighting the Zioga’s “contradictory statements”.
“On the one hand, she describes all these series of indecent assaults made by the defendant, before telling us that she would at the same time go out and then socialise with him and his wife at dinners and so on.”
He continued: “The court also has to ask why she didn’t report this matter straight away, as someone would if they were sexually assaulted. She didn’t report the alleged incident until a few years later – just before he was about to be transferred.”
The lawyer claimed the accusations against his client had been fabricated as an act of revenge, and that her story was “totally inconsistent” and “quite frankly incredible”.
He also accused the other alleged victim, Raptidou, of making up lies that she too had been assaulted in an effort to aid her close friend Zioga.
“For all these years, she never said a thing. She even said on the stand that when asked by one of her colleagues if she was being molested by my client, she said ‘absolutely not’. So why did she suddenly change her mind just when the police investigators arrived at the Embassy?”
Prosecutor Panayiota Kythreotou dismissed the defence’s claims, saying the material evidence from various people against the defendant had amassed reasonable suspicion.
Zioga claims the 55-year-old diplomat had systematically harassed her, pinning her into a corner and kissing her, masturbating in front of her, groping her, and forcing himself in her face as she was sitting down in front of him during a dictation session.
The trial continues tomorrow, with the prosecution set to cross examine Papadimas.
