After former EDEK MPs Marinos Sizopoulos and Giorgos Varnava, the Anti-Corruption Authority has placed a third former MP under investigation.
The investigation came to the attention of Politis as witnesses have begun to be summoned, including officials from the House of Representatives and civil servants from various ministries. The former MP is expected to be the final person to give testimony.
According to information obtained by Politis, the former MP is being investigated for possible fraud and misappropriation of funds through a non-profit company that he founded and of which he is the sole shareholder.
The company is alleged to have received approximately €1.3 million in European and national funding.
According to the same information, after examining complaints and evidence submitted to it, the Anti-Corruption Authority concluded that there were grounds for further investigation in order to determine whether funds managed by the non-profit company and allocated for specific purposes had been misused.
The Two Investigators
For the investigation, the Anti-Corruption Authority appointed former Family Court president Sotiris Liasidis and lawyer Nikolas P. Constantinou as inspection officers.
The two legal professionals previously conducted the investigation into former EDEK president and former MP Marinos Sizopoulos.
In the report they produced, the key findings of which were made public by the Anti-Corruption Authority on 12 September 2025, they identified possible violations of several provisions of the Criminal Code, including fraud, forgery, the creation of forged documents, circulation of forged documents and conspiracy to defraud.
The case concerned the sale of the company TAXAN by Marinos Sizopoulos and three of his former business partners.
According to the report, a share-sale agreement dated 17 October 2017 was signed and submitted to a banking institution showing a purchase price of €1.6 million, allegedly concealing the actual sale price of €2 million, which was recorded in an earlier agreement dated 4 October 2017.
The report further stated that the signature of the foreign investor who purchased TAXAN through the Cyprus investment programme and obtained a "golden passport" allegedly appeared to have been forged on the 17 October 2017 agreement.
Decision Awaits the Attorney-General
Based on the investigators' findings, Attorney-General George Savvides ordered a criminal investigation into Marinos Sizopoulos and his three former partners in TAXAN.
The investigation began last October and was completed recently. The case file is expected to be forwarded to the Law Office for examination.
After reviewing the evidence collected, the Attorney-General will decide whether criminal proceedings should be brought against Sizopoulos and his former partners for the offences identified by the investigators.
Marinos Sizopoulos has publicly rejected the allegations contained in the report, arguing that no liability on his part arises from the findings.
From Complainant to Corruption Suspect
Former judge Sotiris Liasidis, who is now investigating the former MP and previously led the investigation into Marinos Sizopoulos on behalf of the Anti-Corruption Authority, will also investigate former EDEK MP Giorgos Varnava as an independent criminal investigator.
Liasidis was appointed by the Council of Ministers as one of five criminal investigators tasked with examining matters contained in the Anti-Corruption Authority's report on the "Mafia State" affair.
Among the 15 corruption suspects named in that report is former EDEK MP Giorgos Varnava.
Varnava was the person who initially reported Marinos Sizopoulos to the Anti-Corruption Authority, triggering the investigation against him. At the time, he welcomed the Authority's findings regarding Sizopoulos.
However, he rejected the findings related to the "Mafia State" investigation, which also attribute potential corruption offences to him in connection with an alleged attempt to sell Turkish Cypriot land in Dromolaxia worth tens of millions of euros.
The Mylonopoulos Controversy
The Council of Ministers is expected at its next meeting to appoint a replacement for Greek legal expert Christos Mylonopoulos in the team of criminal investigators appointed last week to conduct the criminal inquiry into the "Mafia State" case.
Mylonopoulos submitted his resignation following strong reactions over his previous involvement in the Focus case, which is among the matters to be examined by the investigative team.
The Replacement
According to government sources, Greek criminal lawyer Ilias Anagnostopoulos is expected to replace Mylonopoulos.
Anagnostopoulos is known, among other things, for representing former Israeli Mossad agent Tal Dilian in Greece in the high-profile surveillance scandal linked to telephone interception systems.
Dilian had also been involved in proceedings before the Cypriot justice system in connection with the so-called black van case. No prosecution was ultimately brought against him in Cyprus, unlike in Greece, where the case took a different course.
At the time, the two heads of the Law Office, George Savvides and Savvas Angelides, decided to suspend the prosecution.
Anagnostopoulos has also acted as defence counsel for Leonidas Bobolas in the Paphos landfill bribery case and for the son of former Interior Minister Dinos Michaelides in the defence procurement bribery case linked to the tenure of former Greek Defence Minister Akis Tsochatzopoulos.
In the same case, Dinos Michaelides was sentenced by a Greek court to 15 years' imprisonment in February 2015, while Tsochatzopoulos received a 19-year prison sentence.
