Russian national Maria Efimova, 36, has handed herself in at the Syntagma Square police station in Athens fearing for her life.
The woman, a former bank employee who is considered a key witness in a money laundering investigation in Malta involving local politicians and the Azerbaijan presidential family told the police “there must be something against me” and turned herself in.
The case she is connected to was being reported on by investigative Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia (pictured above), who was assassinated in October 2017.
Since then, two international warrants have been issued by Malta and Cyprus against Efimova over charges of embezzlement and fraud.
Following up on the case, Syriza Eurodeputy Stelios Kouloglou warned that an extradition to Malta would seriously endanger the whistleblower’s life.
“The arrest warrant against Maria Efimova is based on two ridiculous charges of Maltese authorities, that she made improper use of some tickets for her family and that she slandered a Maltese policeman,” Kouloglou stated on Tuesday after the woman called him from the police station fearing for her life.
“If I go back to Malta I will be dead,” she said.
“Greek justice, which is investigating the case following her surrender to police, must seriously take into account the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, to whom the public-interest whistleblower Maria Efimova had given revealing information about financial scandals,” Kouloglou added.
The Russian whistleblower who has been living under the radar with her family on Crete since 2017, claimed that the private bank where she worked had been used for money laundering offering police information, the Guardian reports.
Efimova was led before a prosecutor in Athens and is currently detained at Korydallos women’s prison. The request for her extradition is under examination.