Filenews 24 December 2025
The Court of Appeal increased from 9 to 12 years the concurrent prison sentences imposed on a person convicted of importing and possessing a large quantity of cannabis for the purpose of supply, ruling that the first-instance sentence was manifestly insufficient in light of the seriousness of the offences and the need for deterrence.
The decision, which was unanimous and was issued by Judge I. Stylianidou, concerns a case in which the Paphos Criminal Court had convicted the respondent, following his admission, of importing, possessing and possessing for the purpose of supplying a controlled Class B drug, specifically 8 kilograms and 154.9 grams of cannabis.
At first instance, concurrent prison sentences of 9 years had been imposed for the charges of importation and possession for the purpose of supply, while for simple possession no sentence had been imposed, as its events were included in the most serious charge. The Attorney General appealed against the sentence, arguing that the Criminal Court did not give the required weight to the deterrent element and aggravating factors.
According to the facts of the case, the Cypriot authorities located at Larnaca airport a box that had arrived from the United States, with the recipient company and a specific person and delivery address a store in Peyia. The respondent had previously worked in the company in question, from which he had been fired about two years before the offenses, without being allowed to enter the store since then.
The Police proceeded to a controlled delivery of the box. From the testimonies it emerged that the respondent asked a friend of his to pick up the box, telling him that it contained car parts, and to present himself as the person listed as the recipient. That person was sentenced, inter alia, to six months in prison for forgery.
The Court of Appeal reiterated the established jurisprudential principles governing its intervention in sentences, underlining that it does not redefine their amount in the first place, but intervenes only when they are manifestly insufficient or excessive or when an error of principle is found. In the present case, it held that the first-instance decision did not sufficiently measure the seriousness of the offences and the element of deterrence.
Particular reference was made to the central role of the respondent, whom the court of first instance had characterized as the organizer of the import and planned channelling of the large quantity of cannabis into the domestic market, in order to obtain a benefit. The Court of Appeal also emphasized that the respondent involved third, unsuspecting persons in his plan, leading one of them to commit a forgery offense, an element that was considered particularly aggravating.
Although it was recognized that the convicted person had a clean criminal record and had admitted the charges before the Criminal Court, the Court of Appeal held that in drug cases personal circumstances take precedence over the need for severe and dissuasive penalties, due to the disastrous social consequences of the phenomenon.
Under these circumstances, the court concluded that the sentences of 9 years were objectively inadequate and decided to replace them with concurrent sentences of 12 years in prison for each of the charges of importation and possession for the purpose of supply. As to the remainder, the first-instance decision remains in force.
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The actions of the Police and the enhanced presence at critical points and on the road network continue, to protect citizens and ensure everyday life.
Last night, targeted controls, patrols and interventions were carried out in areas of high crime, while at the same time information is being used in cooperation with other competent authorities, for the effective prevention and suppression of delinquent phenomena.
Specifically, more than 600 inspections were carried out, from which 155 traffic complaints emerged. Twelve of them involved driving under the influence of alcohol, while one driver tested positive for a preliminary drug test.
As part of the investigation of traffic offences, a total of three vehicles were detained, while at the same time seven persons were arrested for offenses related to the illegal possession of offensive instruments and explosives, illegal possession of drugs and illegal stay on the territory of the Republic of Cyprus.
These operations are part of a broad and constantly strengthened crime fighting plan, with increased police presence, targeted controls and immediate operational action in all provinces.
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He went for wool and 29-year-old Abdullah Al Zaytan from Syria came out with a haircut. He had been sentenced to two years in prison for a terrorism offense and appealed the decision of the Court of First Instance, however, the prison sentence was doubled to four years.
The Court of Appeal (Michalis Abizas, Stella Christodoulidou-Messiou and Ifigenia Stylianidou) rejected the two grounds of appeal of the 29-year-old, while on the contrary it vindicated the Legal Service for the contradiction it made and with which it considered the sentence imposed to be insufficient. The appellate judiciary increased the sentence to four years.
The Limassol District Court had sentenced him, after finding him guilty of an offense on the basis of an article of the Combating Terrorism and Protection of Victims Law of 2019.
As Filenews is in a position to know, the 29-year-old was arrested on January 3, 2021 in the village of Moniatis after a coordinated operation by the Police services. The operation was based on information coming from the US Federal Police, the FBI.
Bomb and Hazardous Substances Training Material
More specifically, and on the basis of the court decision, there were the following findings from the Court of First Instance: "The appellant had educational material on his mobile phone, in the form of manuals, which put a person in a position to manufacture bombs, improvised explosive devices, minefields, explosives, chemicals, biological and other materials and harmful and dangerous substances. Videos on his mobile phone included methods of building mechanisms that can be used in attacks on restaurants, buses 2 or even nightclubs. There was a structure in this content and construction instructions were provided with easily accessible materials that have been used in previous terrorist attacks. The Court of First Instance concluded that the quantity, quality and structure of the manuals indicated a person who was trained to use them."
The grounds of appeal
With the first ground of appeal, the convicted person argued that the Court of First Instance acted incorrectly by amending the indictment, adding a new charge with a differentiated time of commission of the offense. The Court of Appeal rejected the claim, holding that the amendment was lawfully made on the basis of Article 85(4) of Chapter 155 and did not cause disfavour to the defense, citing relevant case law of the Supreme Court.
By the second ground of appeal, he argued that the constituent elements of the offence, in particular the purpose of committing or contributing to a terrorist act, had not been proven. The Court of Appeal held that the Court of First Instance had adequately reasoned its decision, relying on both the content of the material and the testimony of a terrorism expert. He also rejected the claim that "education" requires practical training, referring to Directive (EU) 2017/541, according to which self-study via the internet also constitutes receiving training when it is carried out with the intention of committing terrorist acts.
The Court also rejected the claims of lack of jurisdiction, holding that the possession of the educational material within the Republic of Cyprus at the time of arrest was sufficient to establish the offense.
"The first instance decision is clearly insufficient"
At the same time, the Court of Appeal accepted the Appeal of the Attorney General, which challenged the first-instance sentence of two years in prison as manifestly insufficient. The Court held that due to the seriousness of the offence and the risk to public security, the first-instance sentence did not reflect the gravity of the act.
The original prison sentence was replaced with a four-year prison sentence, while his conviction was fully upheld.
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The Cyprus Court of Appeal unanimously upheld the first instance decision of the Paphos District Court, which ordered the continuation of the detention of an appellant in a serious case involving domestic violence, until the next hearing, today, December 23, 2025.
The Supreme Court found the two grounds of appeal raised by the appellant to be unfounded, concluding that the Court of First Instance correctly exercised its discretion on the issue of detention, without exceeding the permissible limits.
The case concerns, among other things, offences of domestic violence, interference in judicial proceedings, violation of a court order, contempt of court and harassment of a person. According to the evidence presented before the Courts, the appellant is accused of threats against his minor son, violation of a decree prohibiting the harassment of the child, as well as actions that, as reported, could affect the trial of the case, in which the minor's mother is a prosecution witness.
As noted in the decision of the Court of Appeal, due to the appellant's non-admission, the case was taken to a hearing. By his first ground of appeal, the appellant argued that the Court of First Instance erred in finding that the grounds for his detention still existed, arguing, inter alia, that the relevant order was never served on him and that the witnesses had already testified. By the second ground of appeal, it was alleged that the fact that the postponement of the proceedings had been requested by the prosecution authority was not taken into account, with the result that – according to him – the continuation of the detention was unfair.
The Court of Appeal stated that it carefully studied all the evidence and the arguments of the two sides, underlining that the subject of examination is the correctness of the exercise of the discretion of the Court of First Instance. As pointed out, in repeated reservation requests, the examination is carried out on the basis of any new differentiating event, which was not established in the present case.
In addition, the Court of Appeal held that the period of twelve days until the next hearing, combined with the total duration of the detention, does not constitute an excess that renders the first-instance decision erroneous or disproportionate. At the same time, he stressed that nothing reprehensible in the management of the procedure was identified by the Court of First Instance, which adequately and clearly justified its decision.
Under these circumstances, the Cyprus Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal and upheld the continued detention of the appellant until the next hearing. It is noted that the Attorney General and the respondent were represented by Sotiroura Papalazarou and the Appellant S. Argyrou.
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He hired two women from Asian countries for agricultural work and was finally found guilty of taking advantage of them, since they worked excessive hours, forcing one of them to sleep in the same bed with him, while locking her in the house and taking her cell phone.
The heavy indictment against him also included two charges of rape for one foreigner and two charges of indecent assault for the second.
The Criminal Court initially sentenced him to a total of 10 years in prison. He appealed, complaining on a number of grounds even for miscarriage of justice due to "inadequacy of his defense". The Court of Appeal, which examined all the grounds of appeal, ruled that the charges for the crime of rape were not proven, which is why the sentence imposed on him was annulled. Thus, the 10 years of imprisonment were converted to eight, a sentence that the Court of Appeal deemed fair and proportionate to the criminal behaviour of the accused.
According to the decision of the Court of Appeal, at first instance in the Criminal Court of Famagusta, the accused faced, in total, 11 charges in violation of the Prevention and Combating of Trafficking and Exploitation of Persons and the Protection of Victims Law, and the Aliens and Immigration Law. Seven of them concerned a specific woman of Indian origin, and four of them, a woman of Nepalese origin.
The 1st category alleged to the appellant that he hired, welcomed and housed the Indian woman, following an agreement for employment in agricultural work, with the purpose of exploiting her work and services and, through abuse of his status and exploitation of a vulnerable position, subjected her to subordination, i.e. to excessive working hours. The 2nd charge accused the appellant of having hired her in a similar way in order to take advantage of his authority as her employer to have sexual intercourse with her. The appellant was charged with two charges that, on 2.1.2018 and 3.1.2018, respectively, he raped the woman in question, i.e. he had intercourse with her against her will.
The 5th and 6th categories are similar to the 1st and 2nd, for a different period of time, but attributing to the appellant that, on the one hand, he subjected the woman in question to subordination, i.e. he forced her to have sexual intercourse with him and, on the other hand, he employed her in order to take advantage of his authority as her employer to have sexual intercourse with her.
The 7th charge attributed to the appellant the illegal employment of the woman in question. The appellant faced similar charges of exploitation of a person at work and sexual exploitation in relation to the second woman from Nepal.
Specifically, the 8th charge attributed to him that he subjected her to servitude, that is, he forced her to sleep in the same bed with him, locked her in the house and took her mobile phone, while the 9th category attributed to him the purpose of taking advantage of his power as her employer to have sexual intercourse with her. The 10th and 11th counts charged the appellant with indecent assault on the woman in question.
The Court of Appeal ruled that the fact that one woman delayed reporting what she was experiencing does not prove the defendant's claims of vindictiveness, since her claims about what happened during the initial disputed time are also consistent with the testimony of other witnesses, who became aware of her complaint.
However, the Court of Appeal considered as unsafe the conclusion of the Criminal Court that the appellant had intercourse with the complainant on the two dates in question.
As a result, this would invalidate the conviction of the appellant on the charges of rape, due to the absence of one of the constituent elements of the offense.
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The case with the Community Welfare Council (SKE) of Agios Athanasios and an amount of €144,000 that simply made wings becomes unprecedented.
The two defendants who managed the money, which was collected from the parents of children for the services provided through the programs of the SKE, were exempted from any criminal responsibility.
On the basis of the day before yesterday's lengthy decision of the Limassol District Court (F. Christodoulidou), the case fell from the prima facie stage, as the prosecution on the basis of the testimony collected by the Police could not sufficiently support it.
So, at the moment, SKE has a deficit of €144,000, without being able to prove who appropriated it. At the same time, the verdict also highlights the gaps that existed in the whole process of managing the money paid by parents in the context of SKE programs.
The following report stands out from the verdict, which also demonstrates the impossibility of presenting sufficient testimony before the Court: "The testimony of the prosecuting authority regarding the alleged responsibility of the accused was revealed, through the testimony of M.K.1 and M.K.2, who explained as the main investigators of the present case, that it was based on speculation, without even the said witnesses to be able to clarify before the Court, despite the relevant questions posed to them by Mr. Spyrou, whether the testimony at their disposal indicated whether the theft of the disputed amounts was carried out either by one or the other accused or by both, jointly".
And the Judge continues in the decision: "In particular, M.K.1, when asked about this, stated that "our position as the Police was that based on the testimonies we received, in any case with the completion of the investigative work there seems to be a gap, it seems that both end up and then a deficit arises. It is not that in itself we do not know which of the two, they both end up. It could be a conspiracy, why do we have to come up with one of the two?" going on to state that "from their position and from their actions that they did make a deposit, they were the ones responsible to handle this money and they were the two people who prepared the documents and everything else that was needed for the accountant... Now as far as your question is concerned, in order to clarify what you are saying, one of the two, since they are not both, should say I gave them to A or I gave them to B, on the contrary, one and the other indirectly but clearly blames the other... We concluded that they are both responsible, so we put the accusations that they are both." (see pages 14 and 15 of the minutes dated 14/04/2015)".
Furthermore, the decision notes that "it is obvious that the Prosecution Authority (...) promotes three possible scenarios. That is, either that the responsibility for the deficit lies with defendant 1, or defendant 2 or both together. Nevertheless, it is clear that there is no clear and direct testimony that indicates the responsibility of either one or the other accused, nor that they acted jointly."
The case of embezzlement from the proceeds of the children's club of the Community Welfare Council of Agios Athanasios had arisen in 2019 with suspicions turning against the two women who were then 41 and 71 years old, respectively. The first is a permanent employee of the Municipality, while the other is a volunteer. The two defendants were represented by lawyers Sotiris Argyrou and Marios Spyrou, respectively.
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Cyprus Mail
A court in the north on Tuesday remanded three people in custody on suspicion of trading in cattle infected with foot-and-mouth disease.
According to Turkish Cypriot media, a court in Famagusta ordered the three suspects remanded in custody for four days. One of the suspects is reportedly a Greek Cypriot.
The suspects are said to be involved in illegally transporting nine cows from the south to the north.
Media in the north said the first tests on the seized cattle showed traces of foot-and-mouth disease.
Blood samples have been sent on to Turkey for further tests.
The allegedly infected animals were located in the area of Acheritou.
Authorities in the north are currently investigating an outbreak of foot-and-mouth in cattle in at least two livestock units.
Four cases of the disease have been confirmed in Lapithos.
According to the Turkish Cypriot veterinarians’ association, the first outbreak was detected last Monday at a farm in the Famagusta district village of Ayios Sergios.
The association confirmed that affected animals were quarantined and vaccinated, the farm and other facilities disinfected and movement restricted.
Last Tuesday, Ankara’s Foot and Mouth Research Institute reported four further cases at a livestock unit in Lapithos.
The north’s ‘agriculture minister’ said the area has since been quarantined, with animal movement prohibited. Approximately 13,000 animals, including cattle, sheep and goats, would be vaccinated to prevent further spread.
No outbreak has been confirmed in the British Sovereign Base Areas (SBA) or in the south. However, the SBA announced last week that precautionary disinfection measures have been implemented at the Pergamos and Strovilia crossing points to reduce potential transmission.
Experts from the EU Commission’s veterinary emergency team have arrived in Cyprus to investigate the outbreak in the north.
Foot-and-mouth disease is a viral infection that affects cattle, pigs, goats and sheep. Infected animals usually recover but may lose weight and experience reduced milk and meat production.
The disease is highly contagious among animals. Though transmissible to humans, it crosses the species barrier with difficulty and with little effect.
