Pafos Live 22/9
Officials of the Customs Department at Paphos Airport, after evaluating information, located 2 passengers with Israeli citizenship yesterday, with their luggage containing large quantities of duty-free cigarettes. Specifically, the packages did not bear the marking for the harmfulness of smoking in the Greek and Turkish languages, nor the safety feature and the unique traceability code, indications that they were duty-free.
A total of 19 boxes of 200 cigarettes each were found in the luggage of one passenger, while in the luggage of the second 10 boxes of 200 cigarettes each. The passengers were arrested for flagrante delicto, while their luggage and contents were confiscated. They were later released, after their requests for an out-of-court settlement of the case with the payment of amounts of €1,140 and €600 respectively were accepted. The seized cigarettes will follow the prescribed destruction procedure.
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As part of the actions of the Aliens and Immigration Service, to locate and arrest persons residing illegally on the territory of the Republic of Cyprus, an operation was carried out today in the districts of Larnaca, Limassol and Paphos.
During the operation, a total of 18 third-country nationals were identified and arrested, who were found to be illegally residing in the territory of the Republic of Cyprus.
All those arrested were transferred to a place of accommodation and in cooperation with the Deputy Ministry of Migration and International Protection, the procedures for their repatriation to their countries of origin are being launched.
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Filenews
Duty-free products were confiscated yesterday by the Customs Department at barricades.
According to an official announcement, on 21/9/2026, officials of the Customs Department, as part of the usual checks they carry out for the implementation of the Green Line Regulation at the Deryneia Crossing Point, stopped for inspection a vehicle with Turkish Cypriot registration numbers driven by a Turkish Cypriot and carrying an Israeli passenger to Larnaca Airport.
During the inspection carried out in the passenger's luggage, packages of hookah tobacco with a total quantity of 7 kilograms and 400 grams were found, which did not bear the marking for the harmfulness of smoking in the Greek and Turkish languages, nor the safety feature and the unique traceability code, indications that they were duty-free.
The tobacco products were confiscated and will follow the prescribed destruction procedure. The person involved was initially arrested for the flagrant offenses, while he was later released, after his proposal for an out-of-court settlement of the cases was accepted, with the payment of an amount of €2,600 in total.
Also on 21/9/2026, at the Agios Dometios Crossing Point, officials of the Customs Department stopped a vehicle driven by a Greek Cypriot for a check.
During the check carried out in the passenger's luggage, packages of tobacco for hookah originating in Nepal with a total quantity of 2 kilograms and 400 grams were found, which did not bear the marking for the harmfulness of smoking in the Greek and Turkish languages, nor the safety feature and the unique traceability code, indications that they were duty-free.
The tobacco products were confiscated and will follow the prescribed destruction procedure. The vehicle was also confiscated as the means of transporting the smuggled tobacco. The person involved was initially arrested for the self-inflicted offenses, while he was later released, after his proposal for an out-of-court settlement of the cases was accepted, with the payment of an amount of €850 plus an amount of €150 for the return of the vehicle.
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The presence and action of the Police last night was intense, throughout Cyprus, with organized patrols in key points of urban areas, with the aim of preventing serious criminal acts, ensuring public order and increasing the sense of security of the public.
As a result of the preventive police operations, ten persons were arrested for various offenses such as illegal stay on the territory of the Republic of Cyprus, illegal possession of drugs and traffic offenses.
As part of these operations, during the night, 494 vehicles were stopped for inspection and 641 persons on board were checked. At the same time, 39 inspections were carried out in premises with the aim of dealing with phenomena of delinquency, during which a complaint emerged.
During traffic checks carried out, 330 complaints were made, concerning various traffic violations, while 31 investigated cases of traffic violations also emerged.
Of the complaints made, 106 concerned exceeding the speed limit, while as part of the police examinations, 18 vehicles were detained. Also, 157 alcohol tests were carried out, from which two complaints emerged, as well as two preliminary drug tests with a positive result.
Policing operations, for the prevention and suppression of crime, continue daily, with an increased/enhanced police presence, targeted controls and immediate operational action, with the aim of increasing the sense of security of citizens/protecting citizens and ensuring public order.
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The Court of Appeal annulled the conviction and sentence of 18 years and four years imposed on a Greek Cypriot man for a case involving a total of 72 kilograms of cannabis, ordering the retrial of the case before a Criminal Court with a different composition.
The unanimous decision, dated September 21, 2026, was issued by Judges M. Abizas, St. Christodoulidou-Messiou and I. Stylianidou.
The man had been convicted by the Limassol Criminal Court on August 22, 2022 on five of the six charges he faced. The charges related, inter alia, to conspiracy to unlawfully possession, unlawful possession for the purpose of supplying third parties and importation of a class B controlled medicinal product, as well as possession and possession for the purpose of supply. The quantity concerned cannabis with a total weight of 72 kg, from which the resin had not been extracted.
For the charge of possession for the purpose of supply, a prison sentence of 18 years was imposed, while for the import of a controlled drug a sentence of four years was imposed. The Criminal Court did not impose separate sentences for the charges of conspiracy and occupation, ruling that their events were included in the other charges.
Before the Court of Appeal, the appellant raised a total of 11 grounds against the conviction and four against the sentence. In particular, he claimed that his rights had been infringed at the stage when, after the prima facie case had been established, he should have been informed by the Court of the options available to him in his defence.
The Court of Appeal initially focused on the specific grounds of appeal, due to their decisive importance for the fate of the case. As he found, on June 14, 2022, the Criminal Court informed the accused that he could either testify under oath or exercise the right to remain silent. He did not explain to him, however, that he could make an unsworn statement from the dock, without being subjected to a cross-examination.
The Court of Appeal held that the Criminal Court incorrectly applied the amendment of Article 74 of the Criminal Procedure Law, Cap. 155, which entered into force on 29 April 2022. According to the decision, the amendment had abolished the right of defendants to testify without an oath, but it did not have retroactive effect.
In the case of the accused, both the commission of the offences and the registration of the indictment and the start of the hearing had preceded the entry into force of the amendment. Therefore, the court held that the right of the accused to opt for an affidavit still existed in his case.
The Court of Appeal attached particular importance to the fact that, after informing the accused and while he had already chosen to testify under oath, the same Criminal Court allowed another defendant in the case to make an unsworn statement. The Criminal Court had then rejected the objection of the Prosecution Authority and recognized that the legislative amendment could not retroactively abolish this right.
The Court of Appeal concluded that the information given to the defendant was incomplete and that the omission constituted a deviation from an imperative obligation of the Court. Citing previous case law, he noted that non-compliance with the relevant provisions for informing the rights of the accused affects the validity of the trial itself.
Consequently, the Court of Appeal considered that it was not necessary to examine the remaining grounds of appeal relating to the conviction or sentence. He annulled the conviction for the five charges, as well as the sentences that had been imposed.
At the same time, the Court of Appeal decided that a new trial should be held, ruling that, under the specific circumstances, the previous procedure was not valid. The new trial will be held as soon as possible before a Criminal Court with a different composition.
The accused will appear before the new Criminal Court at a time to be determined by the competent Registrar and will remain under the same bail or detention regime as he was in during the first instance proceedings.
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The Disciplinary Council convicted a lawyer with the harshest sentence for a serious case of conspiracy and extortion of €20,000 from a citizen, misleading him with a case of arrest of his friend.
Specifically, the lawyer in question was charged before the Disciplinary Council of Lawyers with particularly serious charges related to the demonstration of shameful, fraudulent and incompatible conduct with the profession of lawyer, in violation of Article 17(1) of the Lawyers Law and related, inter alia, to:
• Extortion of a sum of money by false representations.
• Participation in a conspiracy to commit a felony.
• Conduct that directly contradicts the provisions of the Lawyers' Ethics Regulations.
In particular, the accused lawyer was found guilty in a criminal case by the Larnaca Criminal Court, while before the Disciplinary Board he faced charges as follows:
1) By false representations, he extorted the amount of €20,000 from a third person.
2) He obtained the amount of €20,000 knowing that it was income from illegal activities.
3) Conspired with another person to commit a felony, i.e. the extraction of the amount of €20,000 from a third person with false representations.
The defendant was sentenced to two and a half years in prison by the Larnaca Criminal Court. Based on the Court's decision, in March 2019 the lawyer called a person and falsely presented him that another person (he was a defendant in a criminal case) had been arrested on the "green line" and was being detained by the British Bases. He told him that an amount of €30,000 was required for his release and asked him for €20,000, threatening that, if he did not give it, he would be subject to arrest himself because of their telecommunications contacts, resulting in damage to his work. According to a recent decision of the Disciplinary Board, he used his status as a lawyer to reassure and disorient this person and met him at the Larnaca District Court where he signed a document stating that he had nothing to do with any actions of the accused on the green line. He received an amount of €2,000 himself, which he presented as his "expenses". At a later time, he contacted the complainant again, received signed documents and registered a lawsuit against the accused in the Nicosia District Court, requesting and receiving an additional €3,000 as costs.
It is noted that the defendant is charged with a previous disciplinary conviction in case 75/2021, where he was sentenced to the suspension of his license to practice for a period of 6 months on the two charges he was facing.
In its decision of the Disciplinary Court, it is noted that the defendant, in the context of the actions for which he was convicted, took advantage of and strongly abused the status of a lawyer. His actions were suitable to reassure the citizen, to give plausibility to the false representation and to cover up the illegal origin and receipt of the money. "The present case, according to the three members of the Disciplinary Committee, falls into the category of the most serious disciplinary offenses, since the behavior of the accused not only does not constitute a simple unethical deviation, but constitutes a direct violation of the fundamental principles of the profession and proves a lack of the required moral standing to exercise the function of a lawyer. The need to protect the public and maintain trust in the bar requires the imposition of a sentence with a strong deterrent character. The imposition of a lighter sentence would send a false message of tolerance towards behaviors that are fundamentally incompatible with the legal profession," they add.
Deletion and costs
The Council, assessing all the circumstances, the seriousness of the offenses, the conduct of the defendant and the need to preserve the prestige of the legal profession, concluded that the only appropriate and proportionate penalty is the most severe of the provisions. That is why it decided to delete the name of the accused lawyer from the Register of Lawyers, while it was ordered to pay the costs of the procedure. At the same time, the decision was sent to the Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court to take the necessary steps and in particular to inform all the competent registrars of the local district courts.
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A 41-year-old woman, who was found guilty of causing death due to a reckless or dangerous act, failure to comply with a traffic sign and driving a vehicle with a student license without the accompaniment of a person who held a long-term regular driver's license, was sentenced to 12 months in prison today by the District Court of Famagusta.
The 41-year-old was also sentenced to eight points, as well as deprivation of her driver's license for three months, effective immediately after her release.
The case concerns a fatal road collision that occurred on June 29, 2022 in Paralimni, resulting in the death of a 35-year-old motorcyclist.
