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ATHENS — A Greek prosecutor on Wednesday ordered an investigation into an MP with the ruling New Democracy party, Lefteris Avgenakis, who was caught on camera assaulting an airport employee.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis referred Avgenakis to New Democracy’s ethics committee, recommending he be expelled from the party, which he subsequently was. Avgenakis, meanwhile, said he wouldn’t give up his seat in parliament.
The 51-year-old MP, who until last month served as the country’s agriculture minister, had apologized earlier in the day after a video circulated online showing him physically accosting an employee at Athens international airport and grabbing the man’s phone after he was allegedly prevented from boarding a flight to Crete because he was late.
According to the OSEPE airport employees union, Avgenakis also threatened to have the employee “transferred,” and when other workers tried to calm him down reportedly shouted “don’t touch me, I have immunity!” The union also said the employees had paged Avgenakis by name three times before the gate closed.
Opposition parties demanded he be expelled from the parliament.
Avgenakis apologized and sought to downplay his behavior, calling it a “verbal incident with the company employee, as he did not allow me to board, claiming that boarding had been completed, while I could see with my own eyes that passengers were still in the boarding bridge.”
Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis condemned the incident, saying “attitudes of You-Know-Who-I-Am cannot be accepted by the PM.”
The prosecutor’s probe will examine the incident as an alleged assault on an employee, disruption of public service, unlawful violence, and damage to public property. Further legal action will require that Avgenakis’ parliamentary immunity from prosecution be voided.
Avgenakis has been under fire recently for allegedly spending €6,000 on flowers to decorate his office and for taking a painting from his office after he was dropped from the Cabinet on June 14.
