ATHENS – Prodromos Mavridis, former telecommunications manager for Siemens Hellas, denied in court tetsimony having paid politicians from a slush fund to secure state contracts as the long-running saga of the scandal went on.

Mavridis claimed that the managing board of the parent company in Germany had tried to put the responsibility on him fund he said was in Switzerland.

He said he has been cleared in six court court cases of a range of charges from bribery to breach of faith in Germany and Switzerland.

Most of his testimony was about a contract for Siemens to digitize the network of OTE telecom, the state provider, but he said the Greek company didn’t have any losses from the contract, said Kathimerini.

The trial of dozens of suspects in the Siemens cash-for-contracts scandal has been repeatedly postponed since its launch in 2016 as OTE and the Greek state seek damages. It took 10 years even to get to court, common in Greece where even major cases can go on endlessly.