The government on Thursday named the team of five criminal investigators it is to appoint to examine the findings reached by the anti-corruption authority during its own probe into the book, Mafia State, which concluded, among other things, that former president Nicos Anastasiades may be criminally liable for abuse of power.

Spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis named the five as Vasilios Skouris, Christos Mylonopoulos, Sotiris Liasides, Nicolas Koursaris, and Dimitris Tsokalidis.

The Greek judge Skouris is the most widely known figure among the five, having served as president of the European Court of Justice for 12 years, between 2003 and 2015, during which time he presided over Orams case, a famous Greek Cypriot property case in the north, when it arrived at the ECJ in 2009.

In addition to his judicial career, he has twice served as Greece’s interior minister, under prime ministers Ioannis Grivas and Costas Simitis, and as a minister without portfolio under prime minister Ioannis Sarmas in 2023 during the interim period between Greece’s two parliamentary elections that year.

Christos Mylonopoulos is a criminal law professor at Athens’ Kapodistrian university, Sotiris Liasides is the former chief justice of Cyprus’ family court, Nicolas Koursaris is the vice chairman of the Nicosia bar association, and Dimitris Tsokalidis is a lawyer who is notable for defending Giorgos Zavrantonas Christodoulou and defendants in the case of the murder of businessman Stavros Demosthenous.

Letymbiotis said that the appointment of the five investigators “reflects the government’s commitment to transparency, accountability, and strengthening people’s trust in institutions”.

“At the same time, it confirms absolute respect for the independence of the competent authorities and the judiciary, the prescribed procedures, and the presumption of innocence,” he said.

Mafia State was first published by Anastasiades’ former aide and journalist Makarios Drousiotis in 2022, with the anti-corruption authority launching an investigation into its findings the following year, after former Greek Cypriot chief negotiator for the Cyprus problem and then presidential candidate Andreas Mavroyiannis had written to them.

The anti-corruption authority’s investigation into its findings began in 2024. In total, 150 people were interviewed across 200 sessions, with no fewer than 793 pieces of evidence being submitted during the course of the investigation.

The ECJ ruling on the Orams case concerned David and Elizabeth Orams, who had bought a plot of land near the Kyrenia district village of Lapithos in 2002 and built a villa on it.

However, when the first crossing points between the island’s two sides opened the following year, the land’s pre-1974 owner Meletios Apostolides discovered that a villa had been built on his land and as such took the case to the Republic of Cyprus’ Nicosia district court.

In 2004, the Nicosia district court ordered the Orams to demolish the villa, give Apostolides the land, and pay him damages. They appealed the decision at the Cypriot supreme court and lost.

Given that the UK was still a member of the EU at the time, Apostolides used EU regulations to have the Cypriot ruling apply against the Orams couple’s assets in the UK, with the Orams then successfully appealing the decision at the UK’s high court of justice.

Apostolides then appealed that decision at the court of appeal, which referred the case to the ECJ, which, led by Skouris, ruled in his favour in 2009.

After the ruling, Skouris was awarded the Grand Collar of the Order of Makarios III – the highest honour the Republic of Cyprus can bestow – by Tassos Papadopoulos in 2006.