The picture of what happened at the Agii Anargyrii police station, where a woman was knifed while calling police for help, does not reflect the overall picture of the Greek police, or the nearly 57,000 men and women who serve the police force, government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis said in an interview on Thursday evening.
It also does not mean the government has been inert the last five years, he added.
Speaking at the national broadcaster ERT TV, Marinakis said that the government made laws about femicide, domestic violence, and lawlessness in general stricter, in addition to having 1,700 police officers return to neighborhood patrols.
The government did not promise that the phenomena of violence would be obliterated through these measures, however, he noted. "We would have been political impostors had we done so, and especially on such a sensitive issue," Marinakis said.
The spokesman also denied the government had turned down a request for a preliminary or investigative committee on the Tempi train collision. Some opposition parties are trying to carry out their electoral campaigns for the upcoming European Parliamentary elections on the backs of people in pain, he said. "If they really wanted to discuss the [option of a] preliminary investigation, they should follow the constitution and the Parliamentary Rules, draft a charge document, collect 30 signatures below it, and table it. What they're doing is not serious," he underlined.
Marinakis added that "nobody is innocent by virtue of being minister or of having any other identity, but nobody is guilty either - and I keep repeating this - just because anyone outside of justice says so. However, if any party or party group wants to submit a request and have us examine any charge of the party's request - not justice's - we are here to examine them all."
On the issue of the prosecution of Spartiates deputies, he categorically rejected the possibility that some of the party's deputies could join ruling New Democracy. Regarding the government's legislative efforts to prevent efforts like that of jailed former Golden Dawn MP Ilias Kasidiaris from running a party from jail, it shows the government's effective legislation, "as justice is now making use of laws based on the latest amendment by the government on so-called frontmen and real party leaders," Marinakis said.