Christodoulides on Aykut case: I do not intervene in matters of the judiciary

President Nikos Christodoulides on Tuesday stressed that he does not “intervene in matters of the judiciary”, after Israeli property developer Simon Aykut had the previous day pled guilty to a total of 40 of the charges he faces related to the development and sale of Greek Cypriot property in the north.

“I do not intervene in matters of the judiciary. I want to make this clear. Beyond that, the admission also proves the correctness of our policy – a policy which was criticised, not only by the occupation regime, but also by some inside. I repeat, the admission proves the correctness of the government’s policy,” he said.

He then added that the policy “should have been followed for many years”, though he did not specify what the policy was.

Aykut pled guilty to 40 of the 242 charges he faced after a deal was forged between the prosecution and the defence, with prosecution lawyer Andreas Aristides saying Aykut had been “active in the occupied territories in the field of land development and real estate construction without having secured the consent of the legal Greek Cypriot owners”.

He said Aykut, through his company the Afik group, “participated in the construction and commercial exploitation of six large tourist complexes in areas such as Ayios Amvrosios, Trikomo, Gastria and Akanthou, on plots of land belonging to displaced Greek Cypriots”.

These complexes, he added, cover 394,969 square metres of land, with a corresponding market value of just over €36 million.

“No consent was given by the legal owners for any use of their properties,” he said, before going on to name the complexes as the Caesar Cliff, the Caesar Resort, the Caesar Beach, the Caesar Blue, the Caesar Breeze and the Caesar Bay.

Aykut’s lawyer, Maria Neophytou, asked the court for leniency, saying that her client had “acted after being urged by his son, in whom he had complete trust”.

“A father’s love for his son cannot be transformed into a criminally punishable intent. The defendant was not the mastermind, nor did he have any motive for personal enrichment,” she said.

Aykut will be sentenced on October 24.