In a trial concerning the alleged possession of 15 kilograms of cocaine, the defence on Tuesday questioned the police’s narrative regarding the circumstances in which they arrested two suspects.

Nicosia criminal court is re-trying Giorgos ‘Mavrantonas’ Christodolou, previously convicted for possessing 15kg of cocaine with intent to sell. He has pleaded not guilty.

Christodoulou was originally sentenced in December 2022 to 22 years in prison, but that conviction was recently overturned by the appeals court, which ordered the case to be retried from scratch.

Tuesday’s hearing focused on the events transpiring on January 16, 2019 when police arrested two men for possession of narcotics – Aristos Kyprianou and Yiannis Andreou.

The arrests took place in Lakatamia, at Andreou’s residence.

Andreou had initially been sentenced to 16 years in prison for the same case. Having served four, he was subsequently granted a presidential pardon. In the current trial, he is a witness for the prosecution.

The prosecution called to the witness stand two drug squad officers who had taken part in the narcotics bust. An army-style bag, allegedly containing 14kg of cocaine and seized by police during the operation, was shown as an exhibit. The bag was found inside Kyprianou’s car, parked outside Andreou’s house at the time.

Drug squad officer Erotokritos Panayiotou said that on the day he was outside Andreou’s house, and saw Andreou and Kyprianou arrive at the location inside Kyprianou’s car.

The two suspects then entered the residence, with Kyprianou holding the army-style bag. Shortly after, Kyprianou came out of the house holding the same bag and got back in his vehicle, where he placed the bag on the passenger seat. At that point, police officers – who had been surveilling the suspects – carried out the arrests.

According to the witness, Kyprianou told him the bag contained 14kg of cocaine, and that Kyprianou pointed out the packages inside the bag.

At this point, lead defence attorney Christos Poutziouris submitted to the witness that the bag’s volume while inside the car was different to when it was taken inside the house.

Responding, the drug squad officer repeated that Kyprianou told him the bag contained 14kg of cocaine, after Kyprianou had come out of the house.

The second witness, drug squad officer Anastasios Constantinou, said the drugs bust was organised after a tip given to police.

He said he personally knocked on the door of Andreou’s house. Andreou did not open the door. Constantinou said he then forced the door open, and told Andreou he had a search warrant.

According to the officer, Andreou at the time told him he refused to let the police in because the narcotics belonged to him. Andreou also told the officer that he had tossed one of the packets in the garden of an adjoining house.

Elsewhere in his testimony, officer Constantinou said that police also found two mobile phones. The phones were ringing, and the officer asked Andreou who was calling.

One of the callers was Christodoulou, the defendant in the case. According to the officer, Christodoulou was also sending text messages to the mobile phones, asking Andreou to call him back.

The witness said he saw the missed calls and the text messages by looking at the screens of the mobile phones. He did not interfere with the phones to get this information.

Cross-examined by the defence attorney, the witness repeated that police had been tipped off about the narcotics being moved.

Asked whether this information was provided orally, the witness said yes.

The defence lawyer next asked why police did not make the arrests before the two suspects arrived at Andreou’s house.

Police had tracked the two suspects in the car on a highway up until the residence in Lakatamia.

Responding to the question, both drug squad officers said it was deemed better to effect the arrests at the Lakatamia residence, where all involved police had converged for the operation.

The next hearings in the trial have been set for July 16, 17 and 21.

The lead prosecutor informed the court that their next witnesses will include Andreou