Hearing opens at Criminal Court
The long-awaited trial concerning the leak of more than 48,000 state documents began today at the Criminal Court. Defendants, including former Central Prisons Director Anna Aristotelous and her former assistant Anna Demetriou, were present.
Defence demands full access
At the outset, all defence lawyers requested that the prosecution provide complete access to the documents included in the case file. Chris Triantafyllidis, representing Aristotelous, stressed that the defence cannot comment on guilt without first reviewing the documents. Other defence lawyers echoed this point, making access to the material a critical issue at this stage.
Questions about document content
Triantafyllidis highlighted that, according to the defence’s review, the 48,000 documents include materials that are neither classified nor official state documents. He challenged the prosecution to explicitly refute these claims, but the prosecution did not respond during the hearing.
Court records indicate the file contains over 3,000 newspaper articles, hundreds of announcements, dozens of interviews, cassette tapes, TV and entertainment programmes, Netflix shows, theatre leaflets, Cyprus court rulings, European Court of Human Rights decisions, and personal documents such as airline tickets, hotel receipts, boarding passes, dental records, greeting cards, and even a basketball championship announcement. Even when combined, these materials total only a few thousand, raising questions about the source of the 48,000-document figure.
Prosecution requests extension
The prosecution did not respond to the defence claims, requesting a one-month extension to review the documents. The court reduced the extension to ten days, considering a month excessive.
Next steps
The trial has been adjourned, with the next hearing scheduled for 9 February at 9 a.m., when the prosecution is expected to confirm whether the defence will receive full access to the documents.
A pre-trial objection has also been filed by Demetriou’s lawyer regarding a joint complaint she and Aristotelous submitted against Mr Katsounotos in 2022. The court will examine this issue in the upcoming proceedings.
According to SIGMA Editor-in-Chief Giannis Selinopoulos, the case is still in its early stages, and the legal battle over the content and classification of the documents is only beginning.
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