‘Golden passports’ trial postponed – judge absent

The ‘golden passports’ trial was postponed by a week on Friday, after one of the three judges did not appear at the Nicosia criminal court.

The hearing was slated to finalise the charge sheet for the four defendants currently on trial after an Al Jazeera documentary caught high ranking officials on camera agreeing to give a Chinese investor nationality even though he was supposedly a criminal.

Following nationwide fury and protests after the revelations, the Nicolatos investigation into the ‘golden passports programme’ was launched, and ultimately led to the case going to trial and the scheme being scrapped.

The defendants are former House president Demetris Syllouris, former Akel MP and developer Giovanis and senior member of staff at the Giovanis Group Antonis Antoniou.

Last month all charges against lawyer Andreas Pittadjis were dropped.

During Friday’s hearing, the court was expected to announce its decision over the pre-trial issues raised by the defence, which argued that a valid law for the charges does not exist.

Nicosia’s criminal court was also going to decide whether the matter had to be referred to the Supreme Court, after Giovanis’ lawyer George Papaioannou last time raised objections over some of the charges.

He argued charges one, three and five, lack a legal basis and do not reveal any offence known to the law.

Papaioannou said it would not be fair for his client to go through the whole trial only for the charge sheet to be deemed invalid. He argued the matter was very serious and should be referred to the Supreme Court.

State prosecutor Elli Papagapiou countered last time that there were no issues surrounding the charge sheet.

The next hearing will be on December 29 at 11.30am