A FORMER Ambassador was yesterday found guilty of sexually harassing two of his secretaries during his term in Stockholm between 2002 and 2005.
Costas Papadimas pleaded not guilty to 24 counts of indecent assault and sexual harassment against his two secretaries, Alexandra Zioga and Sofia Raptidou.
Yesterday, the court also made note that it was the first time that a court in Cyprus had ruled on such a case of that particular nature.
But the stunned Ambassador and his defence team were left paralysed with disbelief when the three judges delivered a verdict of guilty to 23 of the 24 charges against him.
The final decision also reduced the ambassador’s wife to tears at the end of yesterday’s proceeding.
The judges also accused of the ambassador of “lying in his testimony” and described the testimonies of the two secretaries as “truthful” and “trustworthy”.
During her testimony, Zioga had claimed that the 55-year-old ambassador had systematically harassed her, pinning her into a corner and kissing her, masturbating in front of her, groping her, and pushing his crotch in her face as she was sitting down in front of him during a dictation session.
Ruling on the case, Chief Judge Antonis Liatsos said, “We have observed the plaintiffs (Zioga and Raptidou) during the lengthily testimonies and have closely examined their appearance and attitude towards the court…We observed that during their testimonies, the two plaintiffs were stable, decisive, normal and would also instantly answer questions put to them.”
Referring to the testimony of Papadimas, Judge Liatsos said that Papadimas had “at times tried to cover up the truth by not answering specific questions” while the judges also described the two defence witnesses, one of whom was a professor at a university in Stockholm, as “untruthful” in an attempt to cover up Papadimas.
“The state prosecution has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of the charges against him and we find him guilty as charged. With regards to charge 13, the defendant is acquitted”,
State Prosecutor Christian Kythreotou had argued that Zioga had not wanted to report the Ambassador because she wanted to protect his family and Cyprus from being humiliated.
The last straw, Kythreotou had claimed, was when she found out Raptidou was also being harassed.
Raptidou, who is also Zioga’s friend, had told similar accounts to the court but had stated that her own personal ordeal began at the beginning of 2005.
The ordeal is said to have spanned around four years until Papadimas was set to be transferred to Brussels in late 2005.
Papadimas had claimed that Zioga was his mistress and that the two of them would romp and caress each other both during and after working hours in the Embassy.
He denied harassing her in any way and had claimed that she wanted to exact revenge on him because he would not leave his wife and two children for her.
The accusations were further fuelled by Papadimas’ second in command at the Embassy, Andreas Kettis.
Papadimas says Kettis, who is still stationed at the Embassy in Sweden, helped engineer the accusations following an argument he had with the Ambassador’s wife over who should have the right to the Embassy car when the Ambassador is out of the country.
During the trial, defence lawyer Efstathios Efsthathiou had told the court that the 29-year-old diplomat had been worried that Papadimas would file a complaint report against him because of the row he had with his wife.
Efstathiou had also claimed during the trial that the Zioga’s response to the “alleged harassment” was not a normal reaction of a sexual harassment victim. He had also questioned why she had not reported to the incident sooner and had also described the 33-year-old Greek national to the court as “one of the most contradicting witnesses I have ever heard.”
His argument, however, was rejected by the court.
The Ambassador is set to be sentenced on January 5 while it is reported that Papadimas’ lawyers are likely to appeal the decision at the Supreme Court.
