The request for the KKE MP was rejected
In favor of lifting the immunity of the President of Freedom of Navigation Zoe Konstantopoulou regarding the petition filed against her by her party’s candidate in 2023, Olga Dalla, the Plenary decided. On the contrary, the request to lift the immunity of KKE MP Lianas Kanellis regarding the lawsuit filed by the president of the Freedom Movement, Zoe Konstantopoulou, for defamation was rejected.
The application waiver of immunity of Mrs. Konstantopoulou was voted by 238 MPs against 46 MPs who voted against her, out of 284 resolutions, while Kanelli’s request to lift immunity was rejected with 209 votes “against”, against 25 “for” and 50 “present”.
Earlier, during the discussion of the request concerning her, the president of Plevsis Eleftherias asked the Plenary to lift her immunity as she said this is her permanent position for all related cases that come to the Parliament. Referring to the allegations in Ms. Dalla’s lawsuit, she called them “false from start to finish.” He claimed that Ms. Dalla “is a person who has no connection with our Movement”, “she was a candidate in the 2023 elections and that was her only connection, she has not been a member of our Movement nor has she participated in any process – and from 2023 until today her only occupation is to slander Freedom Sailing and me, obviously being manipulated by politicians rivals”.
Ms. Konstantopoulou argued that in the pre-election period of June 2023, Ms. Dalla “along with other persons who subsequently withdrew, was used by the media and by opponents to make the biggest smear campaign against Freedom of Navigation”. He said that in the lawsuit, among other things, what Ms. Dalla accuses her of “as a crime, in fact, is that I didn’t put her first on the ballot” adding that “after two and a half years of mud, malice, instrumentalizing her and proving the trickery of this person, I think no one should have any doubt about how well I did.”
The president of Pleussis Eleftherias noted that Mrs. Dalla was never elected as a member of parliament as in the elections of May 2023 – which she nominated on the ballot of the Region – Pleussis Eleftherias did not enter the Parliament and argued that the compilation of the list is the prerogative of the president of the party and that all parties have made changes to their ballots. Mrs. Konstantopoulou at the same time emphatically mentioned that Mrs. Dalla has as a lawyer in all these lawsuits filed against her, Vaso Pantazis who is the advocate of Epameinotas Korkoneas, Ilias Kasidiaris and the MP Constantinos Floros while she characterized Mrs. Dalla’s lawsuits as “Slap” lawsuits, connecting these cases, APE BEE reported.
Litigation of Liana Kanellis – Zois Konstantopoulou
The debate in the Plenary on the lifting of the immunity of the KKE MP Liana Kanellis in the petition filed by the president of Freedom of Navigation, Zoe Konstantopoulou, regarding what he attributed to her in her television interview regarding her handling of the Tempi case and the treatment she had as speaker of the Parliament of the defendants of the AXA, developed into a confrontation between the defendant and the plaintiff.
The KKE member of parliament characterized that this debate is “her second award, in the 25 years she has been a member of parliament. “The first was the lawsuit that Ilias Kasidiaris had filed against me for what had been done during a television interview on ANT1 and then with an overwhelming majority the Plenary had rejected it and now it is the second time with the lawsuit filed against me by the President of Pleusis Eleftherias for what I mentioned about her in my television interview.” He attributed to Mrs. Konstantopoulou that she is “possessed by anti-communism” saying that “her attacks are also continuous on other members of the KKE”.
Regarding the essence of the case of the lawsuit, the KKE member of parliament mentioned that during an interview she was asked about her opinion regarding the position of the president of the Freedom Movement on the crime of Tempo, saying that they have done this “unfortunately” and that’s how I gave my opinion.
Asked about the personal attack that Mrs. Konstantopoulou had made against her, Mrs. Kanelli replied: “Obviously, with the opinion of the person who had come face-to-face with Kasidiaris and not in the courts and not in the capacity of a lawyer – which I also have – and not carrying the courts inside the Parliament or the Parliament in the courts, I mentioned what is recorded in the Minutes of the Parliament and we all experienced it here, with the members of the ACA during the presidency of the Parliament of Mrs. Konstantopoulou”. The MP made it clear that “I am not going to apologize to her” and added, addressing the House, “I will not tell you whether or not you should lift my immunity, I leave it to your judgment, I trust your judgment […] now if you want me to go to court to say whether or not there was support for Kasidiaris, good luck. Do what you think.”
The president of Freedom of Navigation Zoe Constantopoulou said that “Ms. Kanelli slandered me in the worst and most vulgar way, as she has done repeatedly but the “knot has reached the comb” because unlike her who had a career during the Junta, my father and mother were in prison, they were brutally tortured in the ETA-ESA – and I do not allow any Mrs. Kanelli who belatedly does career as an alleged communist to call into question my own democratic path and that of my family”. My lawsuit, said the President of Plefsis Eleftherias, “is not a lawsuit against the KKE – the fact that the KKE has this person who at any moment praises Mrs. Bakoyannis, who has a villa in Ekali, who steps in the Parliament once in a thousand years, this concerns the KKE – my lawsuit is against Mrs. Kanellis who slandered me in the most deceitful way, trying to identify me with Kasidiaris and A.A. I who throughout my life have defended democracy from every position and this is recorded […] I ask to defend my reputation, my democratic action and to exercise, as a victim of her repeated vulgarity, my constitutional right, which every person has, to defend my honor and reputation.”
Mrs. Kanelli replied to the president of Freedom of Movement that “vulgarity when thrown by a vulgar speaker falls into the void as a charge […] I only tell you one thing, Bro bono, I undertake to defend her against herself, no one can slander Mrs. Konstantopoulou more than herself” and added “on April 21, 1967 I was in the 1st year of high school, I was going on my first field trip, I was barely 13 years old and if this is called a student career… in the Junta, wow, wow…”
The president of Plefsis Eleftherias, after the announcement of the result of the vote rejecting the lifting of the KKE MP’s immunity, accused the majority of the ND parliamentary group of covering for Mrs. Kanelli.