Lawyer Leto Kariolou, defending former deputy director of the central prisons Athena Demetriou, on Wednesday said that newly leaked allegations were part of continuous “attempts to undermine her client’s integrity”.

“[Mrs Demetriou] reported serious incidents of corruption at the highest level in 2022 and, since then, has been a victim of retaliation,” Kariolou said.

Current allegations against Demetriou concern her suspected involvement in the case concerning the former director of central prisons, Anna Aristotelous, who is said to have illegally stored thousands of confidential documents at the home of a prison warden.

Kariolou said that the new allegations that surfaced on Wednesday concerned matters investigated by the independent criminal investigator Achilleas Emilianidis in 2022, stressing that these had not resulted in any findings against her client.

She said that, following the investigation, Emilianidis had in fact suggested the criminal prosecution of a senior police officer for abuse of power and related offences.

“[Certain individuals] are attempting, for their own purposes, to rekindle these unfounded allegations through a convicted prisoner,” the lawyer added.

The allegations referred to by Kariolou reportedly concern statements made by a convicted prisoner who was seeking favourable treatment in her pending cases in exchange for collaborating with the authorities.

“The detainee in question allegedly expressed her intention to cooperate with the investigators and to do whatever was asked of her in order to ensure more favorable treatment in her pending cases,” she said.

Kariolou did not provide further details on the accusations supposedly made against her client.

Local media, however, reported that the allegations concern an inmate of the central prison who claims to have received special treatment during Aristotelous’ time as prison director, including leaving the prison for events or other activities.

The relevant testimonies are said to have been presented to the Attorney General since October last year, with the lawyer claiming that since then, the inmate in question has had “repeated contacts” with senior police officers and a senior prison official.

Kariolou spoke of a “systematic targeting of a person”, adding that the recent leaks were an “attempt to construct a false image and do not correspond to reality.”

“Our client has already filed formal complaints and has provided sworn statements documenting attempts to obtain false testimony against her, as well as allegations of pressure and offers of bribes to detainees,” she said.

According to the lawyer, relevant information including a request for investigation by an independent investigator has since been forwarded to the Attorney General but so far remained unanswered.

She added that her client had repeatedly requested the presentation of the report and the accompanying witness material since July 2025, and that the Legal Service had only responded with a decline to share the report’s findings on Wednesday.

Emphasising that her client had “nothing to hide”, Kariolou called on the Legal Service to publish the without further delay “so that the truth can come to light.”

Last week, the Audit Office officially requested the suspension of Demetriou, who is currently employed at the Audit Office.

The request for suspension followed the day after the formal registration of a case against former central prisons director Anna Aristotelous, with the case file reportedly including a total of eight defendants – five serving prison officers, one former prison officer – now serving in the police – and Demetriou.