Prison director resigns for ‘personal reasons’

Ioannis Kapnoullas resigned as prison director on Friday, with the justice ministry saying he had submitted his resignation for “personal reasons”.

In his place, the ministry has appointed police chief superintendent Charalambos Philippides, who will serve in the role until June 2026.

Speaking to AlphaNews, he said there were two reasons behind his decision. The first was “the physical and mental fatigue I acquired in my attempts to manage such a nerve-wracking role,” while the second was his “dignity”.

He said, “the work I was doing inside the prison did not seem to be recognised by a section of the media.” He will now return to the Famagusta police.

He had been serving as acting prison director since January 2023, in a move which had drawn criticism from Akel, as it involved his predecessor Anna Aristotelous being appointed as humanitarian affairs commissioner.

Aristotelous had faced a turbulent end to her tenure as prison director after alleging that a high-ranking police officer had colluded with an inmate to attempt to obtain damaging video footage of her.

She had described the incident as a “huge corruption scandal” and “unprecedented by Cypriot standards”.

She and her deputy than asked to be transferred from their positions after the deputy attorney-general announced two investigations into the prisons, one into her allegations and one into prisoners’ use of mobile phones while behind bars.

The result of the investigation was that no evidence was found to support Aristotelous’ claims, and that the police officer was in fact trying to obtain information as part of his job and trying to uncover potential offences carried out by members of the prison service.

Akel described Aristotelous’ appointment as humanitarian affairs commissioner as “offensive”, with their frustrations stemming from a court decision in May which determined that former Defence Minister Costas Papacostas’ human rights were violated during his stint in prison following the Mari explosion.

The court found that Papacostas was not allowed outside at all between July 2013 and April 2015.

Akel had said Aristotelous was “one of those responsible for the illegal and humiliating treatment Papacostas experienced.”

The explosion took place at the Evangelos Florakis naval base in July 2011, when a large amount of ammunition and military explosives kept in shipping containers at the naval base self-detonated, killing 13 people and injuring a further 62.

A three-judge panel at the time ruled that Papacostas, then 73, was responsible for safeguarding the containers and was aware of the dangers posed by the way they had been stored but failed to take action to prevent the explosion.

He was sentenced in July 2013 to five years in prison for manslaughter and causing death by reckless or dangerous acts.