ATHENS — An audio forensic expert told a parliamentary committee investigating the role of a former Radical Left SYRIZA minister in the Novartis pharmaceutical case that a secret tape made talking about bribery wasn’t meddled with electronically.

The analyst, who wasn’t identified, gave that report to the committee of the tape of a potentially incriminating tape recording of a conversation between SYRIZA former Minister of State Nikos Pappas that was made secretly by Israeli-Greek businessman Sabby Mionis, who was talking with him.

The recording is authentic and unadulterated, said the analyst, reported the business newspaper Naftemporiki.

That would refute Pappas’ claim it had been edited to incriminate him although he was talking about  alternate justice minister Dimitris Papangelopoulos, who is being probed over allegations he interfered with an investigation into whether 10 rival politicians too bribes from the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis.

The tape has Pappas saying Papangelopoulos had his “own agenda” and was “making a lot of money” from backroom deals, or “outsourcing,” with the indication Papangelopoulos wanted a bribe from Mionis, the reason unclear.

Mionis provided the audio recording to the committee, while it was immediately leaked to the local media and set off a firestorm that led SYRIZA leader and former premier Alexis Tsipras to tell Pappas to clarify its meaning.

The businessman claims that Pappas advised him to pay the legal costs of an Athens publisher with whom he was at odds, while Pappas is seeking damaging information to be provided against Prime Minister and New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis' spouse, investment banker Mareva Grabowski.