Police questioned journalist Makarios Drousiotis on Thursday as part of an investigation into his book “Mafia State” and a possible breach of personal data legislation, Police Spokesman Vyronas Vyronos confirmed on Friday.
Drousiotis was called to CID Headquarters to give an investigative statement, which he said concerned an alleged violation of intelligence service and personal data protection laws. Drousiotis said this was, as far as he knows, the first time legislation governing the intelligence service has been used to open a criminal investigation into a journalist, describing it as the “use of national security as a weapon against journalism.”
According to Drousiotis, he was asked during the interrogation who knew the contents of the book before it was published, how he obtained the material recorded in it, and what role the book’s editor and designer played. He said he was also asked to comment on the covers of the two editions of “Mafia State.” He further claimed he was asked whether he had obtained any permission from a competent authority to publish his books, linked the timing of the complaint to the Anti-Corruption Authority’s announcement on “Mafia State,” and said this was the third criminal investigation against him within a month.
The case follows an earlier stage of the same investigation, which Drousiotis had announced in a social media post four years after the book’s publication and two months after the Independent Authority Against Corruption submitted its findings. “The masks are off,” he wrote at the time, saying the case followed his referral to the Criminal Court over the “Sandy” affair. He also claimed that CID had asked to take statements from the book’s printer, editor and designer, which he described as an attempt to intimidate his associates.
Police Headquarters Communications Branch officer Michalis Michael had confirmed at that earlier stage that the investigation concerned an alleged breach of personal data and was separate from the case involving the Anti-Corruption Authority’s findings, for which criminal investigators had been appointed. “The investigation process is indeed under way,” Michael said, adding that the case remained at an early stage.
Drousiotis already faces separate court charges of publishing false news, circulating a forged document and harassment in connection with the “Sandy” affair.
