European Parliament lifts immunity of MEP Afroditi Latinopoulou

On Thursday, the European Parliament plenary voted to lift the parliamentary immunity of Greek MEP Afroditi Latinopoulou. This decision follows a request from the Athens Court of Appeal Prosecutor's Office, acting upon a lawsuit filed by former SYRIZA MEP Dimitrios Papadimoulis. The legal proceedings relate to a post published by Latinopoulou on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, on June 13, 2020.

In the contested post, written years before her election to the European Parliament, Latinopoulou accused Papadimoulis and other politicians of causing public disillusionment with politics. She specifically questioned the origins of Papadimoulis's wealth, alleging that he entered politics without assets and subsequently acquired significant property holdings.

Following the parliamentary vote, Latinopoulou publicly defended her past comments, insisting that her 2020 remarks were truthful and not defamatory. She stated that a related civil lawsuit filed by Papadimoulis had previously been dismissed, and she welcomed the opportunity for the criminal investigation to proceed. The lifting of her immunity now enables the Greek judicial authorities to proceed with the legal examination of the criminal complaint filed against her.