The trial of the theft of documents from the central prisons got another adjournment on Tuesday, as it emerged that the prosecution had not submitted to the court all the documents previously indicated.

At an earlier hearing, Nicosia criminal court had instructed prosecutors to share with it some 2,900 documents, so that the court can decide if these documents may be disclosed to the defence.

Prosecutors had withheld these documents, arguing they were classified and therefore their disclosure might jeopardise public security as well as attorney-client privilege.

With the defendants insisting on full access, the court had earlier ruled that it will take it upon itself to determine which documents are classified or secret.

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.

Subsequently prosecutors handed over to the court most of the documents, but on Tuesday it transpired that around 440 had yet to be handed over.

The lead prosecutor apologised to the court, citing miscommunication with the police, who hold the documents.

The defence protested at the new delay, but the court accepted the prosecutor’s excuse and granted a few more days for the delivery of the rest of the documents.

As such, the next hearing was set for Friday.

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

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 police officer.

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 documents cache 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 director of the central prisons at the time of the alleged unlawful removal of the documents, before leaving the post in late December 2022.