Athens: Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Friday defended his former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis over a Grexit `defence plan` that has led to lawsuits against the maverick economist.
"Of course, I personally gave the order to prepare a team to prepare a defence plan in case of emergency," Tsipras told parliament. without elaborating.
"If our creditors were preparing a Grexit plan, should we not have prepared our defences?" Tsipras asked, referring to a scenario of Greece possibly exiting the eurozone.
Varoufakis has been served with private lawsuits for allegedly plotting in secret to take the country out of the euro.
The Supreme Court has forwarded the case to parliament, which has the sole power to determine whether Varoufakis, as a former minister, can be formally charged.
An economist with radical ideas about the euro and Greece`s debt restructuring, Varoufakis this month told a meeting of hedge fund investors that he had been planning a parallel system of liquidity that could have been converted to a "new" drachma "at the drop of a hat."
Tsipras on Friday said Varoufakis may have made mistakes, but was not liable for prosecution.
"You cannot accuse him of stealing the money of the Greek people or of having a secret plan to crash the country into the rocks," the premier said.
