Nicosia criminal court on Monday granted prosecutors another month to sift through the material and decide which can be shared with the defendants’ lawyers, in the case involving the theft of a trove of thousands of documents from the central prisons.

On trial are the former director of the prisons Anna Aristotelous, former vice director Athena Demetriou, five prison wardens and a former employee of the prisons who is now a policeman.

The indictment includes conspiracy to commit a felony, abuse of power, violation of official confidentiality, personal data processing offenses, theft by a civil servant, violation of the security rules for classified documents and illegal possession of property.

The trove of documents was found in April 2025 in the house of a chief prison warden. There were approximately 48,000 documents.

Police had been searching the premises as part of an investigation into a different case.

Many of the documents are marked ‘confidential’ and ‘secret’, and are believed to have been removed illegally from the prisons between November and December 2022.

Aristotelous was serving as governor of the central prisons at the time of the alleged unlawful removal of the documents, before leaving the post in late December 2022.

The eight defendants have yet to enter a plea. Their lawyers want access to all the material before their clients plead innocent or guilty.

The trial is still in the discovery stage. Discovery is the pre-trial process where opposing parties exchange information, evidence, and witness lists to prevent ‘trial by ambush’ and narrow disputed issues.

State prosecutors have yet to share all the documents with the defence. They say that many of the dossiers – about 2,500 of the 48,000 – are classified or sensitive. Some of the documents are architectural schematics of the prisons, while others involve confidential communications between attorneys and their clients.

The prosecution said they will let police go over the documents one more time, to decide which of the material is not classified so it can be submitted as discovery. Some of the material might be redacted before being shared with the defence.

Prosecutors asked for one month.

In court on Monday, some of the defence attorneys asked the panel of three judges to suspend the proceedings until prosecutors complete the task. Others asked that the attorney-general stay the prosecution, and re-file at a later date.

They also argued that prosecutors were taking too long, given that the case was filed in court several months ago – November 2025.

After conferring in quarters, the judges came back, announcing their decision to grant prosecutors one month. The trial will not be suspended. The next hearing has been set for March 10.

The judges said prosecutors are not withholding the material or refusing to share it.