Police cautious about recording suspects

After four years of discussion, parliament will soon be voting on making it mandatory to record police officers during interrogations and investigations.

The matter was discussed during Wednesday’s House legal committee, where deputies have proposed an amendment to the criminal code.

It would make it mandatory that any police statements, interrogations and investigations, will have to be recorded.

Submitted by Akel, Diko and Kostis Efsthathiou (formerly Edek), it aims to offer more transparency to Cyprus’ policing system.

Authorities however have met the proposal with caution, committee chairman and Akel MP Aristos Damianou said.

The matter has been discussed repeatedly with the ministries of justice and finance, as well as police.

The delay is no fault of the committee, the MP argued, saying that deputies believe the change would modernise the country and its procedures.

As such, this should not be met with reservations, Damianou underlined.

He added the committee aims to have the amendment voted into law, giving police a transitionary period so as to also obtain the necessary equipment.

Asked what the reservations were about, Damianou said it concerns fear of the unknown as well as ‘possible side effects’. Not all police stations have the necessary infrastructure, he added.

The matter became particularly prominent during the 2019 Ayia Napa gang rape case, where a 19-year-old woman at the time claimed she was raped by a group of tourists.

Though she retracted her initial statement, her legal team later argued she had been forced to do so by Cypriot police officers.

They said she was held for six hours at the police station without a lawyer, suffering from PTSD and without a translator. There was also no recording of her questioning.