The Greek Government has promoted a suspected antisemite and Holocaust denier to Vice President of the Supreme Court.
Judge Marianthi Pagouteli was appointed at the Cabinet of Ministers meeting on Aon the recommendation of Minister of Justice Kostas Tsiaras.
The judge had spoken out in favor of the acquittal of the well-known right-wing extremist author Konstantinos Plevris in a trial that is famous in this country because of the antisemitic book “Jews, the Whole Truth”.
Plevris, pioneer of right-wing extremism in Greece, who in the first edition of the book openly describes himself as a “Nazi, fascist, anti-democrat, racist and anti-Semite”, always celebrates himself as the “high priest” of Greek neo-Nazism.
Pagouteli had voted for his acquittal and presented a 32-page justification for her minority vote, which it says that the: “author refers to passages from the sacred books of the Talmud. These books undoubtedly contain intolerant and anti-Christian teachings that contradict any notion of humanism. He therefore rightly points out that the Jew who appropriates them is manifestly lacking in humanism.”
Pagoutelis further notes that Plevris “did not designate a subhuman Jew as a Jew in general, but as a war criminal Jew.” He adopts “the Nazi view that the white race does not want Semites in Europe without intent to offend or provoke acts of violence.”
At the same time, MP and lawyer Zoi Konstantopoulou denounced in 2013 that Marianthi Pagouteli ran an internet blog with clearly anti-Semitic comments such as “damn Jews”, saying that she wished that ” Hitler would eradicate them completely!”.
The Holocaust was also openly denied in said blog. It is, literally, a “myth” that “brought the the money they needed to found their state.” An entry dated January 7, 2009 also states verbatim: “Today the Jewish Zionists are proving to be more fascist than the Nazis!”.
The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (KIS), EJC affiliate, condemned the recent promotion of Pagouteli by the Mitsotakis government.
“At the head of the judiciary there is now a person who will not be able to defend the Greece institutional position against antisemitism,” KIS expressed.
