State drops case in Ayia Napa police blunder

A case has been dropped against former deputy police chief Andreas Kyriacou, just hours before a judge was expected to rule in Alexoui’s bail hearing.

According to local media, the attorney general has suspended prosecution against Kyriacou on “public interest” grounds, while also citing a lengthy three-year convoluted process that took a financial toll on the defendant.

Kyriacou, who was fired from his job after a report named him as the man who leaked confidential documents in Ayia Napa mob killings, had been fighting in court over “questionable” evidence.

A Nicosia District Court judge in the case had asked prosecutors to hand over to the defence an internal report in its entirety, following arguments by Kyriacou’s lawyer that his client was being accused of crimes based on findings that were not scrutinized.

But prosecutors refused to hand over all the documents, with the court later contradicting itself and ruling that the trial could go forward.

Attorney General Costas Clerides had himself appeared in court and told the judge the report contained confidential information on matters unrelated to Kyriacou’s case and sharing such details would be detrimental to Cyprus police.

State prosecutors reportedly held back in another case, involving a plot against Nicosia businessman Alexis “Alexoui” Mavromichalis, when in 2018 they said they would not go after the suspects who had been extradited for the trial. Authorities would instead initiate deportation proceedings for two of them, they added.

“Nobody asked me about it,” Alexoui wrote on Facebook, who is waiting to hear on Thursday whether he could walk free on bail in an attempted murder case.

The two suspects, described as Serbs aged 49 and 55, along with a local 48-year-old long-term convict, were being accused of plotting to kill Alexoui during what some described as a potential bloodbath with a number of targets in Cyprus taken out with the use of foreign hit men.

The island made global headlines when a leak to local media exposed a Cyprus police blunder, in which an Interpol Nicosia officer alerted a Serbian mob boss that his hit men on mission to the island were being followed.

Cyprus police argued that the gaffe was a regrettable error, with an officer looking into the case file and inadvertently dialing the wrong phone number while actually trying to reach a colleague with Interpol Belgrade.

The hits were called off and Kyriacou lost his job, accused of leaking confidential documents to the press. But his own trial had been in the air throughout the entire process, with observers saying it could also be dismissed due to prosecutors refusing to share all evidence with the defence, citing confidentiality issues.

“It doesn’t end here for me. The case is just beginning,” Kyriacou said on Thursday, after the case was dropped.