The court of appeal on Monday ordered a retrial of Georgios Christodoulou Zavrantonas, who was in 2022 sentenced to 22 years in prison for the possession of 15 kilograms of cocaine.

Zavrantonas’ lawyer Christos Poutziouris argued that when he was initially convicted, the court he faced was not the “natural” court he would have faced, as the composition of its judges changed.

He also argued that given that Zavrantonas was initially arrested in the north, he had been “kidnapped”.

The court of appeal rejected the latter argument, but accepted the former, thus annulling Zavrantonas’ 22-year sentence.

Zavrantonas will nonetheless remain in custody for now, with the court ordering that he appear within the next 15 days before a criminal court to face the same charges again.

Now aged 49, Zavrantonas has had various run-ins with the law in the past, having been sentenced to concurrent sentences of 12 years in prison for homicide, six years for carrying a pistol, seven years for using a pistol, and two years for possessing explosives without a licence in 1999.

In 2005, he was sentenced to seven years in prison for cultivating a Class B drug with the intent to supply, while in 2010, he was sentenced to eight years in prison for conspiracy to commit murder and four years in prison for conspiracy to commit a felony.

More recently, he was sentenced to five years in prison for possessing explosives without a licence, four years in prison for causing grievous bodily harm, and seven years in prison for transporting a firearm in 2014, before facing his longest sentence yet in 2022.