Speaking to the Financial Times, former prime minister Geir H. Haarde – now faces charges of negligence and mismanagement that led to the economic collapse – has accused parliament of engaging in revenge politics against him. A prosecuting attorney has been chosen.
“My old political opponents are settling scores,” he told the Financial Times in part. “You can criticize what we did and did not do in the political system but me and my colleagues did not cause the crisis any more than George Bush in the US or Gordon Brown in the UK. Everyone was taken by surprise.”
Haarde accused his colleagues of hypocrisy, saying, “Very few politicians criticized the growth of the banking system. The banks were paying a lot of money in salaries and taxes. It was a ride that everyone enjoyed.”
He also more or less blamed Europe for what happened to Iceland. “We had exactly the same regulations as the rest of Europe,” he said. “We did not realize that the system was not created for a small, open economy like our own. It has caused havoc in Greece and Ireland. We were naive in thinking that because the system came from Europe, it must be right.”
Meanwhile, Sigríður J Friðjónsdóttir, an assistant state attorney, has been hired to take on the task of being the prosecuting attorney when Haarde is made to stand trial in a national court. A date for the trial has yet to be set.