The legal services prosecuting the high profile ‘golden passport’ case suffered a setback after the supreme court overturned key search warrants, invalidating the evidence obtained during those checks.

That warrant had uncovered mobile phone, computer and other electronic messages and information – without the use of which the prosecutors are likely to have a harder case to argue.

“We will continue investigating the case as if we no longer have this in our possession,” the legal services and the police told Politis.

The supreme court on Thursday reasoned that the search warrant had been issued without satisfying the necessary criteria, therefore leading to it being overturned.

The case before Nicosia criminal court is centered on the four key players allegedly involved in the ‘golden passport’ scandal – two of whom were leading protagonists in Al Jazeera’s explosive undercover report.

The defendants are former House president Demetris Syllouris, former Akel MP and developer Christakis Giovanis, senior lawyer for the Giovani Group Antonis Antoniou and lawyer Andreas Pittadjis.

A search warrant issued in late 2020 by the Larnaca-Famagusta district court allowed police to check the private property of Giovanis and Antoniou – which included their cars, offices, and homes. Computers, phones, and USBs, among other items, were seized by the police as evidence.

The search warrant was initially overturned in 2021 but the prosecutors appealed, with the supreme court this week now closing the lid on that line of investigation for good.

The court reasoned that the judge who issued the warrant did not satisfy all three necessary criteria – which must all be reached for the warrant to be valid.

The first is that there is reasonable cause to believe that the suspect has committed or is likely to commit a crime. Secondly, that there is reasonable suspicion or likelihood that the that the private communication obtained is connected and relevant to the offence. The final condition is that the warrant being issued is in “the interest of justice”.

The supreme court further argued that the search warrant was issued without considering all these three criteria together, stating that therefore the district court did not act in accordance with the law.

It also reasoned that the district court issued the warrant for offences not covered by the law.

The court case is set for its first hearing on October 26 in Nicosia, where the four defendants will be called on to answer charges of conspiracy to defraud the Republic and influencing a public official in violation of the law against corruption.

During a previous session, Syllouris’ lawyer – Chris Triantafyllides – argued that the two heads of the legal services, who form the prosecution, are also involved in the case in their capacity as former ministers.

Triantafyllides has emphasised that Attorney-general Giorgos Savvides and his deputy Savvas Angelides served as justice minister and defence minister, respectively, as recently as 2020.

Triantafyllides argued that Savvides and Angelides were involved in charges one, two and three in their capacity as former ministers, noting that both served as ministers in the cabinet which approved passports – the same passports for which his client is on trial.

The Cyprus Mail contacted Triantafyllides, who explained that his argument is that charges 1 through 3 – pertaining to all defendants – relate to two passports issued to foreign nationals.

“These two passports were approved by the cabinet in 2019, when Savvides and Angelides were members of the cabinet. So how can that decision, considered legal then, be said to be illegal now? Also, there is clearly a question of a conflict of interest for Savvides and Angelides.”

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings .

As is common practice with almost all professional websites, https://cyprus-mail.com (our “Site”) uses cookies, which are tiny files that are downloaded to your device, to improve your experience.

This document describes what information they gather, how we use it, and why we sometimes need to store these cookies. We will also share how you can prevent these cookies from being stored however this may downgrade or ‘break’ certain elements of the Site’s functionality.

We use cookies for a variety of reasons detailed below. Unfortunately, in most cases, there are no industry standard options for disabling cookies without completely disabling the functionality and features they add to the site. It is recommended that you leave on all cookies if you are not sure whether you need them or not, in case they are used to provide a service that you use.

The types of cookies used on this Site can be classified into one of three categories:

You can prevent the setting of cookies by adjusting the settings on your browser (see your browser’s “Help” option on how to do this). Be aware that disabling cookies may affect the functionality of this and many other websites that you visit. Therefore, it is recommended that you do not disable cookies.

In some special cases, we also use cookies provided by trusted third parties. Our Site uses [Google Analytics] which is one of the most widespread and trusted analytics solutions on the web for helping us to understand how you use the Site and ways that we can improve your experience. These cookies may track things such as how long you spend on the Site and the pages that you visit so that we can continue to produce engaging content. For more information on Google Analytics cookies, see the official Google Analytics page.

Google Analytics is Google’s analytics tool that helps our website to understand how visitors engage with their properties. It may use a set of cookies to collect information and report website usage statistics without personally identifying individual visitors to Google. The main cookie used by Google Analytics is the ‘__ga’ cookie.

In addition to reporting website usage statistics, Google Analytics can also be used, together with some of the advertising cookies, to help show more relevant ads on Google properties (like Google Search) and across the web and to measure interactions with the ads Google shows.

Learn more about Analytics cookies and privacy information.

An IP address is a numeric code that identifies your device on the Internet. We might use your IP address and browser type to help analyze usage patterns and diagnose problems on this Site and improve the service we offer to you. But without additional information, your IP address does not identify you as an individual.

When you accessed this Site, our cookies were sent to your web browser and stored on your device. By using our Site, you agree to the use of cookies and similar technologies.

Hopefully, the above information has clarified things for you. As it was previously mentioned, if you are not sure whether you want to allow the cookies or not, it is usually safer to leave cookies enabled in case it interacts with one of the features you use on our Site. However, if you are still looking for more information, then feel free to contact us via email at [email protected]

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.