Prosecutors involved in the missing files from the central prison case on Tuesday handed over 1,116 documents of the 2,900 total to the defence during proceedings at Nicosia criminal court.

The documents had not been previously delivered as they were marked classified.

The remaining documents will be reviewed through procedures set by the court.

The next hearing will be held at 9am on June 9.

On Tuesday, prosecution representative Anna Mattheou said the classified documents had been saved on three hard disks and included central prison maps and blueprints, as well as correspondence between lawyers and clients.

Chris Triantafyllides, defence lawyer for former prison chief Anna Aristotelous, raised strong objections, saying the prosecution should prove that the documents were classified, as access to them could place lives or fundamental rights of individuals at risk, as well as national interest.

He also said national security documents should be submitted to the court as hard copies and not in digital form.

The defence, he added, believed it was “unlikely” that the documents were indeed covered by the exemptions for classified material and spoke of a “parody” and “unreasonable and illegal restrictions”.

He furthermore questioned how reliable scanned documents could be, as it was possible to modify them.

The prosecution assured the defence that the documents had not been modified during scanning and that submitting thousands of hard copies was not the best practice at this stage.

The court decided that all documents to be submitted should be in printed form and gave the defence time to look over the original documents.

The prosecution then said the originals were part of a bulk of documents – 48,432 to be precise – and that it would take time to separate them.

In April 2025, a police search of the home of a prison warden revealed a large volume of official documents, some marked “confidential.”

Subsequent to an exhaustive investigation, law enforcement officials apprehended five individuals, four prison guards and a police cadet, on suspicion of misconduct relating to the removal of said documentation.

Police believe that the majority of the documents were removed between November and December 2022. Both Aristotelous and former deputy director Athina Demetriou have since given testimony.

In November 2025, authorities officially registered a case against Aristotelous.