ATHENS REPORTER FILES LIBEL SUIT IN '83 DISPUTE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100090001-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 14, 2011
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: May 15, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/14: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100090001-4
amt NEW YORK TIMES
ON PAf^E 15 May 1986
STAT
Athens Reporter Files Libel Suit in '83 Dispute,
ATHENS, May 14 (AP) - A reporter
here filed a libel suit today against the
publisher of Greece's largest newspa-
per, a week after the Athens prosecutor
charged the journalist with threatening
terrorist acts against the paper.
The dev lopments added another
twist to 8 tee-vaa rs d le attl
volvina charges v the newspa_~er that
?1.
publisher, George Bobolas, and its edi-
tor, Alexander Filipopoulos, as
"agents of Soviet influence."
Mr. Bobolas sued, and Mr. Anastas-
iades was convicted of libel. He was
sentenced to two years in prison but
was released pending appeal. An ap.
peals court annulled the sentence in
1984 on a legal technicality.
In July 1983, shortly after the book
was published, Ethnos published ex-
cerpts of wiretapped telephone conver-
sations between Mr. Anastasiades and
Mr. Zotos.
new a er charged that Mr.
Anastasia es was a U.I.A. agent and
v ti ns indi-
lann to em o ees o
the new r estro t e premises
an esta i ze emocrac rn Greece.
The excerpts not appear o support
the charges.
2 Appealing Sentence
gave contradictory evidence on how
the tapes had been obtained. He also
said his professional reputation had
been damaged by articles against him
in Ethnos.
Ethnos, or Nation, supports Prime
Minister Andreas Papandreou's Social-
ist Government. The tabloid first ap-
peared in 1981 and claims sales of more
than 200,000 copies daily, representing
25 percent of all newspaper circulation
in Greece.
telliaence aencv ar eg by the
reporter that to newsna r is con
trolled by the K.G.B., the Soviet intelli-
gence service.
The reporter, Paul Anastasiades, a
Cypriot journalist based in Athens,
sued the publisher, the editor and three
staff members of the left-leaning daily
E
h
t
nas for defamation of character
and perjury.
Meanwhile, Mr. Anastasiades and a
lawyer friend, Panayotis Zotos, face as
much as a year in prison if convicted of
charges that they threatened to carry
out terrorist acts against Ethnos,
specifically the slaying of the paper's
staff and destruction of its premises. A
trial date has not been set.
Dispute Began in 190
Mr. Anastasiades, who writes under
the name Paul Anastasi, is a corre-
spondent for The Daily Telegraph of
London and a part-time correspondent
for The New York Times.
The dispute began in 1983 when Mr.
Anastasiades published a book entitled
"Take the Nation in Your Hands." In
the book, he charged that the newspa-
per was published in cooperation with
the K.G.B. and described the paper's
In April 1984, Mr. Bobolas and Mr.
Filipopoulos were sentenced to five
months in jail for using illegally ac-
quired wiretaps, and they have ap.
Pealed. They were acquitted of charges
that they made the tap, on Mr. Anas-
tasiades' phone at the office of The New
York Times in Athens.
In the suit filed Wednesday, Mr.
Anastasiades named as defendants Mr.
Bobolas, Mr. Filipopoulos, Apostolos
Garoufalis, the Ethnos public relations
director, and two editors, Christos
Theoharatos and Nikos Nikolaitis.
Mr. Anastasiades maintains that
during the preliminary investigation of
the wiretapping case, the defendants
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/14: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100090001-4