Embattled former deputy chief of police Andreas Kyriacou accused prosecutors on Wednesday of refusing to hand over to his defence team, the evidence in the case brought against him for leaking confidential information.
Kyriacou was fired last May by President Nicos Anastasiades after the attorney-general, Costas Clerides, announced he appeared to have been behind the unauthorised leaking of confidential information, including a tip from Serbian Interpol about a foiled assassination attempt, and was the likely leaker of a 2015 internal police report on preventing and combating corruption to an MP and the press.
On Wednesday, prosecutors amended the particulars of the three charges faced by the former policeman: breach of confidentiality in relation to the contents of the Interpol Nicosia case, and the dissemination and leaking of classified information in connection with the contents of those files. The third charge concerns breach of confidentiality in relation to the January 2015 study on the prevention and handling of corruption in the Cyprus police.
His sacking came months after a gangland shooting in Ayia Napa that saw four people killed, including a police sergeant and his wife who were having dinner with a suspected crime boss, who also died.
Following the shooting, classified information concerning the handling of the case by police was leaked to the media. According to a probe, the only person that could have leaked that classified information, contained in a file of Nicosia Interpol, to the media was Kyriacou.
Kyriacou, according to the conclusions of the investigation, is also suspected to have been the one who leaked a 2015 report which had been classified as a service document and was intended for internal police use only. A copy of the report was presented last June however, by an MP at the House ethics committee while parts of it were published in a newspaper the next day.
Kyriacou’s defence lawyer, Andros Pelekanos, repeated his request to be handed the evidence in the case, accusing the prosecution of refusing to do so.
He told the court that they had been notified in writing by the prosecution that they would only be allowed to inspect the material that concerns the Interpol Nicosia file.
The casefile also included two administrative inquiries into the leaks as well as the findings of investigators into the possibility of corruption in the force.
The defence argues that the corruption study had not been leaked by Kyriacou and that it had never been classified. His lawyer also said that the documents relating to the Interpol case had been leaked before the file reached the deputy chief.
The court will reconvene on October 17.
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