Plan for prisons ready by month’s end says minister

The ministry of justice will soon announce a new plan for the operation of the prisons, minister Anna Prokopiou said on Sunday, saying they will be ready by the end of April.

Speaking after an event at the central prisons, she said “we have some proposals that we will submit to the president very soon, which of course concern a mobile phone deactivation system, which is purely a matter for the ministry of Communications, but at the same time a plan that will also aim at solving the overcrowding faced today which is certainly a serious problem,” she said.

Although she has not paid an official visit to the prisons since taking office, Prokopiou said the contact she has with acting director of prisons Ioannis Kapnoullas “is very good”. She said they are in constant communication and she has informally visited the prisons many times.

“But there is the big official ceremonial visit, scheduled for the end of April and until then we will definitely have concrete proposals that can be made public,” she concluded.

Assistant police chief of Famagusta, Kapnoullas took charge at the prisons in January after the two most senior officials there were away from their posts.

Director Anna Aristotelous and her assistant, Athena Demetriou, had requested their transfer to another public service last year, listing a number of reasons and raising security issues.

This came after the legal service found no evidence of corruption against senior police officer Ioannis Katsounotos who was accused by Aristotelous as having colluded with an inmate to secure damaging footage of her and Demetriou.

Discussions about blocking mobile phone use at the prison have been ongoing for years after it became clear those inside the prison had used phones to organise ongoing crimes.

An investigation last was last year carried out by four independent investigators into alleged widespread mobile phone and drug use in the prisons, the conclusions of which led the attorney-general’s office to say conditions at the facility were “uncontrolled and extremely dangerous situation”.