Prosecution fails to hand over witness material in Thanasis Nicolaou case

By Tom Cleaver

Prosecution lawyers in the case against an alleged cover-up of the circumstances regarding the death of conscript Thanasis Nicolaou failed to hand witness material to the defence on Thursday.

The matter was raised by defence lawyers at the Limassol district court, who said that the delay in the handover of the material will “form the basis” of their pre-trial objections.

They said they will also object to the fact that Nicolaou’s family’s laywer Savvas Matsas is to act as a prosecutor.

Matsas had previously served as an independent criminal investigator on the case, but was removed from that role by attorney-general George Savvides, who said he had taken the decision because Matsas revealed the details of his findings to the media.

Defence lawyers on Thursday also said their clients had been the subject of “slander … in the media”.

When Matsas responded to the defence’s position, he said there is a “large volume” of witness material, which exceeds 5,500 pages in length, and that as such the material which concerns the defendants “should be collected separately”.

The defence lawyers argued that the material should be handed over in its entirety, with the court agreeing and deciding that the material should be handed over in its entirety to the defence lawyers, as well as in printed form to one of the defendants; former head of the police station in the Limassol district village of Lania, Christakis Kapiliotis.

The case’s next hearing will take place on February 19.

Kapiliotis is one of five defendants in the case, alongside former state pathologist Panicos Stavrianos, former Limassol police chief Angelos Iatropolos, former Limassol police crime detection unit chief Nicos Sophocleous, and former head of rural police Christakis Nathanael.

Almost 40 charges have been filed against the five, most of which have been filed against Stavrianos, and include charges of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, neglect of official duty, issuing a false certificate, perjury, destruction of evidence, and interference with judicial proceedings.

The five stand accused of covering up that Nicolaou had not committed suicide, as Stavrianos had initially ruled, but had instead been murdered.

The filing of private came comes after the legal service had announced in June that it intended to file no criminal charges with regard to the alleged coverup of Nicolaou’s death following the completion of a report into Nicolaou’s death and the circumstances surrounding of its aftermath written by lawyer Thanasis Athanasiou and retired Greek police lieutenant Lambros Pappas in 2024.

The legal service had written in a letter to Nicolaou’s family that Pappas and Athanasiou “did not reveal any new facts capable of overturning the legal reasoning of our decision” not to file charges beforehand.

“There is no trace of testimony about [Stavrianos’] knowledge of there having been a murder or [his] intention to cover for the perpetrators in order to provide them with the opportunity to escape punishment.”