Criminal proceedings in the case of illegal issuance of passports under the Citizenship by Investment programme have been postponed again.
The new hearings are expected to take place on 28 April and then on 6, 7, 12, 13, 15 and 16 May.
The reason for the postponement was technical problems that prevented the prosecution from presenting the e-mails that form part of the evidence in court. It should be noted that the main defendants are now former President of the House of Representatives Demetris Syllouris and former MP Christakis Giovanis. Earlier, the court acquitted lawyer Andreas Pittagis and one of the directors of the Giovani Group, Antonis Antoniou.
All the men were charged with five offences. The main ones relate to criminal conspiracy to undermine the authority of the Republic of Cyprus and to influence a public official in violation of the Council of Europe Convention on the Criminalisation of Corruption. It is worth noting that the lawyer Syllouris acted Chris Triantafyllidis, the interests of Giovannis and is represented by George Papaioannou.
Recall that the major scandal broke on 12 October 2020, following the publication of a report by the Qatari television channel Al Jazeera.
In the video, senior officials agreed to grant Cypriot citizenship to a Chinese investor who had been sentenced in absentia by the Chinese authorities to seven years in prison for corruption, money laundering and bribery.
Cyprus has set up a special committee to investigate the high-profile scandal. In parallel, the country's Auditor General has been conducting an independent investigation, which, for reasons unknown, has been repeatedly blocked. A series of public hearings were held on the island. Finally, on 22 June 2021, the final report of the committee of inquiry headed by Myron Nicolatos into the illegal issuance of golden passports was published. The 780-page dossier was heavily redacted. The names and some personal details of investors were removed for security reasons.
A lengthy investigation revealed a number of irregularities. Syllouris and Giovannis resigned. Under pressure from the international community, the Cypriot authorities were forced to close the scheme on 1 November 2020.