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Former President of Cyprus Parliament and ex-MP amongst 4 charged with corruption, authorized sources say, following Al Jazeera investigation.
4 individuals, together with the previous president of the Cyprus Parliament, have been charged with corruption over a cash-for-passports scandal uncovered by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit.
The 4 are attributable to stand trial within the capital, Nicosia, on 12 September after the island’s lawyer common filed 5 counts of conspiracy to defraud the state and untoward affect over public officers on Thursday.
Cyprus authorities mentioned the fees had been associated each to Al Jazeera’s investigation, and the findings of a 2021 board of inquiry prompted by the exposé.
The authorities didn’t establish the individuals charged, however authorized sources instructed Al Jazeera they had been Demetris Syllouris, former president of the Cyprus Parliament; Christakis Giovani, a former member of parliament and property developer; Antonis Antoniou, the Giovani Group’s government director; and lawyer Andreas Pittadjis.
The passports scandal was uncovered in an Al Jazeera documentary, The Cyprus Papers Undercover, launched in October 2020.
The Cyprus Papers Undercover
Within the documentary, all 4 males instructed undercover reporters posing as representatives of a fictitious rich Chinese language felony that they had been keen to assist the felony acquire a Cypriot passport and develop into a citizen of the European Union – for a worth.
The 4 males mentioned that they might assist the felony purchase a passport via the Cyprus Funding Programme underneath which passports might be issued for at least 2.15 million euros ($2.5m on the time) funding.
Nevertheless, in response to Cypriot regulation, convicted criminals had been barred from benefitting from the programme.
When the reporters requested Pittadjis if he had beforehand modified a consumer’s title for a passport so his felony document wouldn’t be detected, he replied, laughing: “After all, that is Cyprus!”
Syllouris, then-president of the Cyprus Parliament, instructed the reporters that they might have his “full assist”.
Requested if the felony applicant would obtain a passport, he mentioned: “I can’t say one hundred pc however I say 99 %.”
All 4 males denied any wrongdoing.
Inside days of the documentary’s launch, the passport scheme was cancelled, Syllouris and Giovani resigned, and the European Union and the Cyprus authorities and police launched investigations.
Hundreds protested towards corruption exterior the Parliament constructing in Nicosia.
Leaked paperwork confirmed extra wrongdoing
European Union passports are much-coveted paperwork for individuals from Asia, the Center East and nations like Russia and Ukraine.
As an EU citizen, a Cyprus passport-holder is free to dwell, work and journey within the 27 EU member states and revel in visa-free entry to greater than 170 nations.
Earlier than The Cyprus Papers Undercover was aired, Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit launched The Cyprus Papers, a trove of greater than 2,000 leaked functions for the Cypriot passport programme.
These paperwork confirmed that between 2017 and 2019 Cyprus had accredited passports for greater than 30 individuals who had been underneath felony investigation, worldwide sanctions or serving jail sentences.
An extra 40 candidates held delicate political or state positions which meant they had been thought of a severe threat for bribery or cash laundering underneath EU tips.
In that interval, Cyprus had accredited greater than 1,400 passports underneath the scheme, with many together with members of the family, taking the full to almost 2,500.
The 2021 Cyprus inquiry into the citizenship scheme discovered that 53 per cent of the 6,779 citizenships granted between 2007 and 2020 – the overwhelming majority of them to Russians – had been illegal.
The Cyprus exposé was a part of a wider investigation which confirmed how a felony may purchase an English soccer membership and use it to launder the proceeds of crime, helped by “enablers” who may disguise his wealth and alter his identification – with a brand new passport.
The undercover reporters had been led to Cyprus by Keith Hunter, a personal investigator and former Scotland Yard detective, who mentioned he had contacts on the island who may assist the felony consumer acquire a passport.
The Males Who Promote Soccer was launched in August 2021 and received a raft of awards and a BAFTA nomination in 2022. The Cyprus Papers Undercover was nominated for a BAFTA the earlier yr.
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