European prosecutors are investigating a Greek government contract that funneled EU recovery funds into a pilot program applying artificial intelligence to the country’s forensic medical services. New documents and photographs reported by in.gr raise questions about how it was awarded.
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office, the EU body that pursues crimes against the bloc’s financial interests, is examining an agreement the Justice Ministry signed in December 2023. The work went to a laboratory at the University of Piraeus, where a close relative of a senior ministry official works. Because the money came from the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the EU’s post pandemic stimulus fund, the case falls within the prosecutor’s remit.
At the heart of the matter is Vassiliki Giavi, the Justice Ministry’s administrative secretary and a close associate of Justice Minister Giorgos Floridis. The lab that was awarded the contract employs a close relative of hers, who according to available information, allegdely a significant share of the financing. Giavi has denied any involvement and has pursued legal action and out of court notices against media outlets over the coverage.
The selection questions
When in.gr first reported on the project in June 2025, it argued that using AI in forensic medicine is not internationally established practice and that Greece adopted it without the preliminary procedures in place that such a step would normally require. The reporting at the time alleged that the outcome was decided in advance and that the laboratory was effectively handpicked because of the family connection of Ms Giavi.
Two official accounts have backed Giavi’s position. Panagiota Boura, who heads the ministry’s coordination service, testified that only she and Floridis dealt with the contract and that Giavi played no part. She said the relative was chosen later, in April 2024, through University of Piraeus procedures. A separate review by the Finance Ministry’s recovery fund unit reached the same conclusion. Drawn up in December 2025 under Orestis Kavalakis, it stated that Giavi had no connection to the contract.
However, despite the ministry’s assurances a photograph has come to light that complicates those accounts. Issued in a Justice Ministry press release dated Feb. 1, 2024, the image presents Giavi as the ministry’s sole representative at the project’s presentation, two months before the relative was said to have been selected. The relative appears in the same shot, identified as an associate of the head of the University of Piraeus lab. The image was taken two months before the relative was reportedly selected, yet he already appears in it alongside the lab head, raising questions about when and how he was chosen.
The Finance Ministry’s Special Coordination Service for Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) also reviewed the contract and cleared Giavi too. But it took longer than expected, gave changing accounts of its own findings, and reached that conclusion without ever explaining the photograph.
Specialists at the Polytechnio’s biomedical technology lab, who have spent years on systems like this and worked with the Health Ministry before, say no one sought their view. Nor, it appears, did anyone at the Education Ministry examine why the university turned down a contract that could have funded its School of Electrical Engineering.
Delays and operational problems
The project was due to be delivered by the end of 2025 but was granted a six month extension to June 2026. Forensic doctors who have used it describe serious problems in the field. Training fell short, the system was pulled from use, and the tablets supplied for it sit idle.
The relative himself, in a recent scientific post, conceded an error rate as high as 24%. He described the system generating “hallucinations,” fabricated or incorrect outputs, and emphasized how much still rests on human judgment. When the application was presented at an international conference in Bulgaria, foreign specialists showed little interest, which only deepened doubts about its reliability. The audience was made up largely of Greek forensic doctors, ministry officials among them.
When in.gr approached the relevant parties for answers on the delivery timeline and the problems faced by the proect, two of the figures involved, acceptance committee chair Eleni Kalyva, a forensic doctor, and Boura, both declined using identical wording.
Giavi has also drawn criticism over a series of decisions beyond this contract. A recent document originating from the Supreme Court prosecutor’s office has come to light, warning her against interfering in the work of the courts.
Source: TA NEA
