Police confirmed on Tuesday the formation of an investigative team to work alongside independent criminal investigators, with seven officers assigned to the Mafia State case.

The team will support the work of five independent criminal investigators appointed to probe potential criminal offences identified by the anti-corruption authority.

The authority’s investigation, which ran for more than two years and examined allegations first raised in the book Mafia State, concluded with findings pointing to possible criminal liability for 15 individuals, including former President Nicos Anastasiades.

The panel of independent investigators is led by Vasileios Skouris, a professor of public law and former president of the EU Court of Justice.

He is joined by Ilias Anagnostopoulos, professor emeritus of criminal law at the University of Athens, alongside three Cypriot lawyers.

Their appointment followed the recusal of Attorney-General George Savvides and Deputy Attorney-General Savvas Angelides from the case, both of whom were appointed to their roles by Anastasiades during his presidency and served alongside him in his cabinet at the time.

According to the authority’s findings, Anastasiades faces scrutiny over three counts of trading in influence, one count of abuse of power, and three counts of attempted commission of a criminal offence.

Anastasiades rejected the findings, issuing an extensive defence in which he argued that investigators “violated essential legal rules which govern any investigation” and accused the authority’s report of falling “far short of expectations for an investigation of such scope and public interest.”

He said the inspection officers had failed to give him the opportunity to respond to the findings before their publication, describing this as “unacceptable and contrary to every principle of law.”