Greece’s judiciary has been thrust into turmoil over two of the country’s most high-profile cases: the investigation into the deadly Tempi train disaster and the unresolved wiretapping scandal.
What began as a routine judicial defense has spiraled into a battle over democracy, power, and the independence of the courts.
The latest upheaval began when Supreme Court President Ioanna Klapa publicly backed appellate judge Sotiris Bakaimis, who is overseeing the probe into the Tempi rail tragedy.
Her intervention, meant to shield him from political and institutional pressure, instead ignited a firestorm. Maria Karystianou, the mother of one of the victims, pushed back forcefully. In a striking rebuke, she accused those disregarding judicial independence of being the real threat to democracy.
Her words set off a chain reaction. In an unprecedented move, the Union of Judges and Prosecutors, the country’s largest judicial association, issued a rare and defiant statement. Aware of the potential backlash, they acknowledged the risk that their intervention could be dismissed or distorted. But their message was clear: they stood not just for the victims of the train disaster but for a Greek public that had lost faith in the institutions meant to protect them.
Their criticism took direct aim at Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. The judges condemned what they saw as his attempt to interfere with the investigation, citing a letter he had sent to the country’s chief prosecutor urging action. For them, this was more than political overreach—it was a violation of the fundamental principle of separation of powers, an effort to undermine the credibility of the judiciary itself.
The response from the Supreme Court’s top prosecutor, Georgia Adeilini, came swiftly. Without naming names, she lashed out at what she called “self-appointed guardians of democracy” who, in her view, were exploiting the moment to serve their own interests. She accused them of inflaming public sentiment, eroding trust in institutions, and even inciting violence through reckless statements and online attacks.
But Adeilini’s warning went beyond the political fray. She suggested that the escalating rhetoric around the case was not just undermining the courts but encouraging a return to mob justice, a dangerous path that could spiral out of control.
While this judicial battle played out in public, a separate controversy surfaced—one that threatened to expose even deeper fractures within the justice system. On the same day
Klapa defended the courts' integrity, Supreme Court Deputy Prosecutor Achilleas Zisis quietly shut down a request to reopen an investigation linked to Greece’s ongoing wiretapping scandal.
The case revolves around a supermarket employee whose prepaid debit card was allegedly used to finance anonymous text messages targeting opposition leader Nikos Androulakis and investigative journalist Thanasis Koukakis. Androulakis and Koukakis had petitioned for a deeper probe, but Zisis dismissed the request, ruling that the matter had already been fully investigated. His justification? Bank employees had testified that they could not determine who loaded money onto the card at an ATM.
But the facts tell a different story. The card’s owner told investigators that he lost it under unclear circumstances. More importantly, he insisted that he had never activated it with a PIN. Yet, according to sources with direct knowledge of the case, the card was later loaded with funds from an ATM using a PIN—an action that should have been impossible unless the rightful owner had activated it.
The National Bank of Greece has stated unequivocally that a PIN can only be sent to the phone number registered to the account holder. It cannot be randomly assigned. If the card’s owner never activated it, never lost his phone, and never received a PIN, then how was the card used? Who activated it?
By ruling the case closed, Zisis left that question unanswered. His decision raises a troubling possibility: either the prosecutor overlooked a critical detail, or he chose to ignore it.
As both cases unfold, they reveal a deeper struggle within Greece’s institutions. The battle over Tempi is no longer just about a train disaster—it has become a fight over the judiciary’s independence. And the wiretapping case, far from being resolved, now carries the scent of a cover-up.
