THE TRIAL of a former Ambassador, accused of sexually harassing his two secretaries, continued yesterday with the fianc? of the secretaries denying that his partner was in love with the Cypriot official.
The former Cypriot Ambassador to Sweden Costas Papadimas – is facing multiple charges of sexual harassment against two of his secretaries between 2001 and 2005 during his term in the Swedish capital of Stockholm. The complaints were filed against Papadimas in June 2005.
Last Thursday and during a fiery cross examination of the one of the secretaries, Alexandra Zioga, Defence lawyer Efstathios Efstathiou accused the 35-year-old Greek national that she was exacting her revenge on the Ambassador, along with two other people, because he would not leave his wife and two children for her.
The defence team has so far denied all the charges arguing that the two secretaries and a diplomat had conspired together to “destroy the Ambassador” for their own personal reasons.
Demetris Vasiliou, 49, a Greek national living in Sweden, was yesterday on the stand denying accusations from the defence that he “was engineering lies at the behest of Alexandra” to help her in her effort to destroy the Ambassador.
“All that Alexandra has told me is true… I had urged her not to leave her job despite the daily disgusting harassments she would suffer at the hands of the Ambassador because it should have been the Ambassador who should have left”, Vasiliou told the court.
“Why didn’t you react, as a man would react protecting his loved one, if she was honestly being sexually harassed by the defendant. Why didn’t you report him?” asked Efstathiou.
“The Ambassador is a man with a high position and diplomatic immunity. I feared that nobody would believe us so we thought the best thing to do was to wait until his term was up and then report him. As things happened in the end, we did it before when Alexandra learned that Sofia, the other secretary, was being harassed as well.
Efstathiou then quizzed Vasiliou about the statement he gave to police officers stating that “your statement is in many ways similar to the statement made by Alexandra”.
Vasiliou also dismissed claims from the defence that Papadimas was in fact having an affair with Alexandra and that she was still secretly in love with him.
The court went on to hear how Vasiliou had met Zioga in October 1999 and how they were cohabiting in a house they were renting in Stockholm, along with another man who is a friend of Vasiliou.
The 49-year-old travel agent also spoke of his engagement to Zioga and how the Ambassador’s wife had urged them both to get engaged so “the Ambassador could finally get over Alexandra”.
The defence is also claiming that Zioga had asked the Ambassador and his wife to be the witnesses, while Zioga told the court last Thursday that it was the Ambassador’s wife that had urged them to get engaged.
Chief Judge Haris Poyiatzis ordered the trial to continue on September 11.
