Report on passport scheme to be released, President says

President Anastasiades said the report of the investigative committee spearheaded by Securities and Exchange Commissioner Demetra Kalorigou on the island’s disgraced citizenship-by-investment program will be released next Tuesday.

The announcement comes amid a deepening rift between Anastasiades and the leader of DIKO Nicholas Papadopoulos, who followed through on his threat to vote down the 2021 state budget if Cyprus Investment Program (CIP) files weren’t handed over to Auditor General Odysseas Michaelides.

Anastasiades said Wednesday that after consulting the Attorney General, the Unit for Combating Money Laundering (MOKAS) and the Data Protection Commissioner, the findings of the investigative committee under Kalogirou, as well as those of the report by the committee headed by former Supreme Court president Myron Nicolatos, will be released in full, barring the content that must be concealed in view of data protection, following the completion of police investigations,

The committees were tasked with investigating possible criminal offences in connection with the ‘golden passports’ scheme.

"I would like to state the obvious and reiterate that the purpose of investigative committees is to demonstrate any political, disciplinary or criminal liability,” Anastasiades said, adding that “I do not intend, in any way, to risk any undermining of the investigative committee, or of any investigations that the Attorney General deems appropriate to carry out, in order to satisfy the petty-politic expediencies of anyone."

Anastasiades denounced “the efforts of some to discredit institutions and persons in multi-person committees,” stressing that "the concerns are not focused on any findings against the President or government, but on what some may want to conceal about specific law firms.”