Filenews 1 March 2022 - by Michalis Hadjivasilis
In the Legal Service they are preparing the indictment for the al Jazeera network revelations and the five involved, so that in March, unless unexpected, the case can be registered before a court.
Information from "F" indicates that the delay observed in the announcement of the decisions of the Attorney General and the Assistant Attorney General, concerns the separation of the testimony that exists in the case file for each one individually. The Police had completed their investigations since last December and forwarded the voluminous file with all the testimony gathered from the months-long investigations to the Legal Service for study and decision-making. It is recalled that the police investigation covered the former Speaker of the Parliament Dimitris Syllouris, the former MP Christakis Tziovanis and other persons.
In the Legal Service, a team was formed by the criminal department, which began the study of the evidence and testimonies from the eight-month investigations, in cooperation with the investigators from the ICF Police Headquarters to resolve questions. Recently, as "F" wrote, investigators had gone to London where they received from the offices of Al Jazeera the original video taken by his journalists when they came to Cyprus, presenting themselves as representatives of a Chinese investor without a clean record, and were investigating the possibility of securing him Cypriot citizenship through the naturalization program. It is the intention of the authorities that this video, in the event of a future trial, should be submitted to the Court as a presumption, which the other side will in no way accept.
What remains, according to information from "F", is a testimony from a Briton who allegedly collaborated with his compatriot real estate agent who is seen in the video talking about how he was promoting naturalization cases. The real estate agent was located in Cyprus and after many attempts he was convinced and gave statements about what he knew about the case. Testimony has also been obtained from the computers of the persons involved, although appeals were made to the Supreme Court on the matter.
In the meantime, the Police are continuing their investigations into two other major cases involving naturalizations of foreign investors, which were recorded in the Kalogirou report. One concerns the naturalization of Malaysian Joe Lowe for which the investigators rushed months ago to the Archdiocese and took testimony from the Primate of the Church, in relation to a cheque he got from the businessman. There is no question about the Archbishop on this issue.
