Cyprus Mail
CyprusFeatured

Paphos mayor wades into election infighting

Paphos mayor Phedonas Phedonos

Paphos mayor Phedonas Phedonos has stirred the pot with allegations that presidential candidate Nikos Christodoulides had suspect dealings with a – now deceased – Greek financier accused of corruption.

The mayor’s remarks came during a political congress of the ruling Disy party held over the weekend. The allegations were aimed at slinging dirt on Christodoulides – a longtime Disy cadre who has since gone ‘rogue’ and is now running against his party as an independent for the 2023 presidential elections.

Phedonos dug up allegations that have been made before – that Christodoulides met with Greek banker Andreas Vgenopoulos in Athens in 2013. At the time, Vgenopoulos was accused of corruption peddling, specifically through a company called Focus Maritime Corporation – alleged to have been used as a slush fund to bribe political parties and state officials in Cyprus.

In his speech before the Disy congress, Phedonos challenged Christodoulides to come clean on his alleged meeting with Vgenopoulos, “when he was picked up in a black limo and taken to Vgenopoulos’ central offices.”

The mayor went on: “These matters should be raised in the public debate, and they should be answered. I don’t want to hear about so-called incorruptible or untainted politicians.”

Though Phedonos did not specifically name Christodoulides, he was clearly alluding to him. Later, when asked by Politis newspaper to clarify, he confirmed it was Christodoulides.

It appears Phedonos was rehashing information first disclosed by author Makarios Droushiotis in a book titled The Gang.

According to Droushiotis, who during the time in question worked at the presidential palace, he overheard a telephone conversation between President Nicos Anastasiades and Vgenopoulos. On realising the conversation was a sensitive one, Droushiotis gestured to the president, as if to ask whether he should step out. Anastasiades gestured him to stay.

From what he could hear, Droushiotis inferred that during the phone conversation, Vgenopoulos effectively asked Anastasiades to get Cypriot authorities to back off from indicting him. The president replied he could not do that, as the justice system in Cyprus is completely independent of the executive branch of government.

But according to Droushiotis, Vgenopoulos kept insisting on speaking or meeting with the president, who rebuffed him.

On November 5, 2013, while on a trip to Athens, Anastasiades dispatched Christodoulides as his personal emissary to meet the Greek banker in his stead. Droushiotis recounts how later on Christodoulides personally told him that Vgenopoulos had sent a limo to pick him up from the hotel.

“He was escorted by Vgenopoulos’ bodyguards, who looked like goons. In order to get to Vgenopoulos’ office, he had to walk through huge sliding doors. Christodoulides told me [i.e. told Droushiotis] that Vgenopoulos was asking for the termination of the judicial procedures against him.”

At the time Christodoulides served as director of the Diplomatic Office of the President. He was appointed foreign minister in March 2018.

At the core of charges against Vgenopoulos lay allegations of indirectly bribing Cypriot politicians and key officials, including former Central Bank governor Christodoulos Christodoulou, sentenced to five months in jail for failing to disclose to the taxman €1 million he received from Focus Maritime Corporation.

Other allegations involved payments of €2 million – also by Focus – to the island’s two largest political parties in the run-up to the 2008 presidential election.

Vgenopoulos died in November 2016, aged 62.

Follow the Cyprus Mail on Google News

Related Posts

CySEC toughens oversight on cross-border activities

Andria Kades

Great Sea Interconnector ‘top priority’

Andria Kades

EU to support establishment of asset management office in Cyprus

‘Akamas debacle will cost Cyprus dearly’

Andria Kades

Limassol gallery welcomes a journey of the mind

Eleni Philippou

Helios crash orphans denied state compensation

Andria Kades