State pathologist Panicos Stavrianos has no legal standing to submit a certiorari petition, as his legal rights were never violated, a lawyer for Thanasis Nicolaou’s family said on Thursday.
The statements by lawyer Nicos Clerides to CNA came as the family submitted their objections to Stavrianos’ certiorari at the Supreme Court.
Stavrianos’ motion seeks to annul a court ruling which said Nicolaou was murdered.
He had been the pathologist which attributed Nicolaou’s death in 2005 to be due to suicide. In May, the third inquiry into Nicolaou’s death ruled he had been strangled.
Clerides said the crux of the argument behind the objection is that Stavrianos “has no right” to submit a certiorari petition “because his rights were never affected.”
He added only the legal service has the right to try and annul the findings of the death inquiry but it has not done so.
The case is slated for hearing on September 10 at the Supreme Court. During the last hearing, lawyers for Nicolaou’s family charged the legal service was not impartial in the inquiry.
Representing the legal service were the deputy attorney general Savvas Angelides, and state attorneys Elli Papagiapiou and Christia Kythreotou.
Angelides had said the legal service had identified “serious legal errors” in the ruling of the inquiry.
Meanwhile, Clerides argued the legal service “passionately supported” Stavrianos’ findings were correct during the last inquiry into Nicolaou’s death.
He added this stance favoured Stavrianos and points to a conflict of interest, he argued.
Following the inquiry which ruled Nicolaou was murdered, cabinet appointed two independent investigators to the case.
Retired Greek police lieutenant Lambros Pappas and lawyer Thanasis Athanasiou have been tasked with uncovering the circumstances behind Nicolaou’s death, as well as any “reprehensible acts” and omissions in how the case was handled.
The investigation is going ahead, regardless of the certiorari motion.
President Nikos Christodoulides himself said the truth must shine over what happened to Nicolaou, as he stressed it is high time to have answers over the case.
On Wednesday, Nicolaou’s mother Andriana expressed the hope that “the judges will finally see with a clear mind the truth, and they will understand that something else is hiding behind this.”
She added she hoped “they would allow justice to be served.”
Andriana said this was a particularly difficult month not only because of the court proceedings anew, but that because on September 29, the family would be marking 19 years since her son was murdered and his body found under Alassa bridge.
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