The Greek Parliament lifted parliamentary immunity from K. Velopoulos – he will be tried in an ordinary court

The plenary session of parliament decided by a majority vote to lift the immunity of the leader of the Greek Solution, Kyriakos Velopoulos: 258 votes in favor, 8 against and 3 no.

The case that is pending against Velopoulos involves defamation through a false social media account allegedly presented by the former head of the Greek Solution Party, a retired Navy officer.

It is noted that the ethics committee by a majority vote recommended lifting his immunity, which was supported by all parties except KKE, which announced its “presence” while Mr. Velopoulos himself asked for the same.

Kyriakos Velopoulos (24 October 1965) is a Greek politician and journalist, founder and president of Hellenic Solution. He was a former member of the Thessaloniki Parliament for the People's Orthodox Union.

Biographical information
Born on October 24, 1965 in West Germany, to Axos and Paleo Mylotopos, Pella, from a rural refugee family with roots in Cappadocia and Pontus. At an early age, he returned to Greece and graduated from the Dendropotamos Lyceum in Thessaloniki, and then studied at the private journalism school of the Center for Liberal Philosophical Social Research as a scholarship student. In his resume, he states that he completed his undergraduate studies in 2013 and his postgraduate studies in History, Archeology and Greek Civilization at the Open University of Cyprus in 2016. Since 2017, he has been working on his PhD thesis at Sofia University.

As a journalist, he hosted several television programs on regional television channels. The most famous programs in which he took part are “Ellinorama”, “Contra and Rixie”, “Apokalptiko delito” on Extra Channel 3 and “Anatropiktiko delito” on Alert TV. In addition to Greek, he speaks English and German.

Married to Olga Petropoulou, they have one daughter. His brother is journalist and former New Democracy MP for the May 2023 elections, Dimitris Venerini.

In his youth he was a member of the PASOK youth organization. Became a member of LAOS, from which he was a parliamentary candidate in the 2004 national elections, receiving 5,700 votes, but was not elected because LAOS did not pass the 3 percent threshold. In the 2006 local elections, he ran in Pella Prefecture, receiving 7,903 votes and finishing third with 7.1% of the vote. In the parliamentary elections of 2007 and 2009, he was elected Member of the Thessaloniki Parliament from L.O.S. In the 2010 local elections he ran in the Central Macedonia region, finishing fourth out of eight candidates.

In 2011, he supported the coalition government of Loukis Papademos, in which L.A.O.S. participated with several of its members, and in February 2012 abstained from voting on the second memorandum along with the majority of L.A.O.S. deputies. (the exceptions were Adonis Georgiadis and Makis Voridis, who voted for the new measures and were subsequently expelled from the party). On 20 May 2012, he resigned from the party along with other members, protesting the behavior of party supporters towards former MPs, and two days later he joined New Democracy, but refused to participate in the elections as a party member due to various differences. In 2015, he finally left the party to create a new one.

Since 2016, he has been the chairman of the Greek Solution party, from which he was elected to the European Parliament in 2019, receiving 4.18% of the votes and 3.70% of the votes, thus winning 10 seats in the Greek Parliament.

In May 2018, representing the Greek Solution party, he criticized the mayor of Thessaloniki, Yiannis Boutaris, saying: “We must stop bourgeois politeness with ridiculous dangerous politicians. Mr. Boutaris yesterday was the moral culprit of what happened.” For these statements, he was condemned by most of the Greek media, accusing him of publicly inciting violence and spreading false news that led to it.

Shortly after being elected to the European Parliament in 2019, he supported the construction of a wall on the border with Evros to protect against migrants, as well as the reintroduction of the death penalty in Greece.

In July 2019, a few days after joining the Greek parliament, in response to the Ukrainian government's decision to chemically castrate pedophiles, he proposed a referendum on penalties for three categories of crimes: pedophilia, slave trading and drug trafficking. The options he proposes for voting are the death penalty and life imprisonment, and in the case of pedophilia, also chemical castration. On other issues, he advocated the development of the primary sector and the abolition of parliamentary immunity.

In one book, he counts Georgios Georgalas, the government's top junta official and later far-right theorist, among his “spiritual teachers” whom he used as his main source. Georgalas published several history books (which were criticized as parahistorical), using German National Socialist schemes in his presentation of Greek history. Georgalas was one of the main sources on Greek history.

Coronavirus
Velopoulos opposed the use of masks for children under 12, accusing scientists of having “controversial” views and of not being convinced of the need for masks for children. He also stated that the use of masks may affect children's learning and psychosocial development, which needs to be taken into account, and called “the principle of fascism” attempts to disagree with the opinions of scientists.

In August 2020, Velopoulos stated that “there is no vaccine.” In statements in November, he criticized the government for ordering 25 million doses of vaccines against the virus, saying there is “no research [по вакцинам]” and referred to illegal immigrants as the number of doses ordered greatly exceeds the population of the country, and also hinted at possible bribery of scientists promoting the vaccine. He also argued that there are scientists who object and that three years of testing are needed, as opposed to 7-8 months that were spent citing the exploitation of the population as guinea pigs.

He criticized the government, citing inadequate training of clinicians and inadequate intensive care units (ICUs), and called the infiltration of ICUs by journalists “a crime.” He also criticized the first lockdown and the uncontrolled opening of tourism in the summer of 2020 in an interview.

In a speech to Parliament on January 15, 2021, Kyriakos Velopoulos spoke out against mandatory vaccines, addressed the issue of people with autoimmune diseases who claim that they “cannot be vaccinated,” and criticized the government for the ratio of basic wages and fines for not wearing a mask compared to others countries. He has described himself and the Greek Solution as anti-vaxxers and anti-coercive practices, arguing that the vaccines are of dubious quality and are purely preventative. Velopoulos also opposed judicial immunity for members of the infectious disease committee.

For several years, he hosted television shows that covered news (national, international geopolitical issues and immigration), interspersed with telemarketing of products such as dietary supplements, books, alternative medicine items, etc. In these programs, he was accused of seeking mislead television audiences, and in spreading false news and conspiracy theories. Among other things, he claimed that Greece was paying immigrants to visit brothels, as well as a number of various unsubstantiated theories about the environment, international politics and public health.

Forged Letters of Christ
In 2014, he featured handwritten letters on his show that he said were written by Jesus Christ. The event was discussed by Greek media and politicians, who called the letters unacceptable and called them an attempt to misinform viewers. In fact, the letters for sale are manuscripts from the monastery of Dionysius from 1420, and the scientific community agrees that they are forgeries. He initially denied selling them, but later admitted their existence and mentioned them in an interview: “It is a fact that there are manuscripts of Jesus, I do not take back what I said as a historian,” and referred to the “semi-literacy” of his critics.

Anti-coronavirus cream
In one of the programs aired in March 2020, while Greece was facing the coronavirus pandemic, Velopoulos advertised an antiseptic that he said could protect people from the virus. The sale of this product was criticized by the media and Greek citizens, who argued that the antiseptics did not protect against the spread of the virus and called it obscene. A few days after the publications, the prosecutor's office intervened in the case. NCR awarded fines totaling €730,000 to 25 regional stations that broadcast specific products, and Velopoulos responded by saying that the fines to the stations were not justified by law and that he and Hellenic Solution were targeted by synchronous attacks.

Court cases
Velopoulos was sentenced by decision 1375-1376/1999 of the Thessaloniki Court of Appeal to four months' imprisonment, suspended for three years, for embezzling the sum of 1,440,000 drachmas from an advertisement on TV Thessaloniki. In 2011, Kyriakos Velopoulos accused teacher Pavlos Antonopoulos as “a provocateur who disrupts workers' meetings by leading 'masked men' and ordering them to attack parliament and the police with Molotov cocktails.” In 2014, the teacher sued him, resulting in him being convicted of libel with a fine of 15,000 euros, and he was prohibited from mentioning the teacher's name.

Relations with squatters on Mount Athos
The abbot of the holy monastery of Esphigmenos Bartholomew accused Kyriakos Velopoulos of confirming financial transactions with squatters on Mount Athos. In particular, he mentioned his involvement in the sale of products that, according to the abbot of the Esphigmen monastery, are of low safety and are produced in an illegal industrial plant on Mount Athos, where no checks are carried out to guarantee the safety of the products for human consumption. He added that Mr Velopoulos was spreading false information about events and living conditions on Mount Athos. Finally, in a brief report, Bartholomew stated that the squatters have no connection with Mount Athos and that their goal is to support illegal commercial activities.

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