ATHENS, May 19 (Xinhua) -- Greek parliament decided on Friday to send back the corruption cases of ten high-level current and former officials to judicial authorities for further investigation.
The parliament decided that judicial authorities should continue the probe to determine whether two former prime ministers, the current governor of the Central Bank of Greece Yannis Stournaras, European Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos and other prominent politicians should be prosecuted.
Under the Greek law, when names of ministers appear in judicial probes, the files must be automatically sent to parliament, regardless of whether there is any wrongdoing, so that lawmakers can decide whether they will refer the case to the justice department.
The allegations of corruption and bribery span a decade from 2006 to 2015, before the current government assumed office.
Some 50 million euros (62 million U.S. dollars) were given as kickbacks by Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis to politicians, public officials and doctors among others for favorable price fixing, prosecution sources told Greek national news agency AMNA.
All former officials implicated in the Novartis case have strongly denied any wrongdoing. Some have accused the government of interfering with justice.
