Vicky Stamati, the wife of jailed former socialist minister Akis Tsohatzopoulos, who is on the run after an escape of Dromokaitio Psychiatric hospital spoke with Frixos Drakontidis shortly before her escape.

The video shows her refering to her husband, who served as defence minister from 2996-2001 and is accused of pocketing bribes through offshore companies from the procurement of a Russian rocket defence system and German submarines.

Stamati is convicted of money laundering. She states that she has been attacked by people as though she is being to blame for Greece’s ill. She says other inmates are blaming her for Greece due to her spendthrift life prior to her trial.

Asked if she is paying for her husband’s sins, she claims that she doesn’t believe that her husband has “sins”. She says that everything will be proven in the end and that the documents showing her innocence were not taken into consideration.

Background:

Vicky Stamati, the wife of convicted former Greek socialist defence minister Akis Tsochatzopoulos who was also jailed on corruption charges, escaped from a psychiatric hospital early on Thursday morning. Guards found her room empty with a broken window at 6.30 a.m. after she had last been seen shortly after 1 a.m. that morning.

Stamati had been jailed in April 2012 at an Athens-area central prison for money laundering, amongst other crimes associated with her ex-husband’s activities as minister during a period when the then PASOK government signed several costly weapons procurement contracts. All petitions for her release had been denied, but she was transfered to the Dromokaition psychiatric ward in a west Athens district following severe depression.