Lawyer Theophanis Andreou on Wednesday slammed the health minister for his handling of the suspension of state pathologist Nicholas Charalambous over the Potamia fatal shooting case.

“The minister was completely out of order,” Andreou, who is Charalambous’ lawyer, told Politis radio, claiming that the manner of the suspension reeked of “mudslinging” and completely disregarded due process.

Charalambous, the state pathologist who carried out an examination of the body of the 24-year-old Pakistani man after he was discovered face down in a field in Nicosia on January 6, originally ruled out foul play. He attributed a wound on the man’s shoulder blade to a sharp stone found near the body, which a police officer photographed at the scene.

During the post-mortem Charalambous carried out four days later he said the wound had actually been caused by a 9mm bullet which he had removed from the body. The bullet was from a police firearm.

“At the very start of a criminal investigation [the health minister] Michalis Damianos spoke publicly of a ‘huge mistake’ made by the state pathologist, circumventing [legal] proceedings and prejudging [the outcomes],” Andreou said on the radio.

Moreover, the minister made inappropriate statements about the decision of the public service commission [to suspend Charalambous] when the law in fact provides for the minister to suggest a suspension, via letter, to which the other party has the right to object.

In the case of Charalambous the time granted for an objection would have been until January 17.

“The minister doesn’t seem to know the [correct] process,” Andreou said. He added that what had been published, as the sequence of events, was misinformation.

Contrary to what had been suggested, the case had been handled correctly by police, according to protocol, as a potential criminal case but a conclusion had not been drawn at the scene by Charalambous as to the exact cause of death, Andreou maintained.

“Someone in the health ministry wanted to smear him,” by presenting the facts in a misleading way, the lawyer said.

Rash judgments about the medical examiner’s ineptitude, or worse, were not supported by any facts, Andreou said.

“Did the state pathologist sign a document ruling out foul play? Can he have done an autopsy with findings on the spot [that night] at the scene?” he asked.

Andreou went on to state that the bullet lodged in the man’s shoulder blade could only have been found during the course of an actual autopsy, which could only be carried out once the court had ordered it.

“The delay [between the initial certification of death and the date of the autopsy] had nothing at all to do with the state pathologist,” Andreou said.