Ex-finance minister to testify in ‘golden passports’ trial
The defence in the high profile ‘golden passports’ trial will be summoning former Finance Minister Constantinos Petrides to testify in court on July 18, since he had earlier said that the programme was at the discretion of the cabinet, it was announced on Friday.
On trial at Nicosia criminal court are former House president Demetris Syllouris and former Akel MP Christakis Giovani. They stand accused of influence peddling and conspiracy to defraud, relating to the naturalisation of foreign investors.
The calling of witnesses on behalf of the prosecution was wrapped up on Friday, with the testimony and cross examination of the last prosecution witness, police officer Chrysostomos Christou.
The defence will be summoning three witnesses.
Defence attorney Giorgos Papaioannou said on Friday that during Thursday’s proceedings a statement given by Petrides had been read out, according to which cabinet decisions constituted guidelines in the golden passports programme and derogations had been granted for large investments or humanitarian or advanced age reasons.
“For no reason during my term did I sign a recommendation for approval of someone who I believed would expose Cyprus or had carried out illegal activities,” Petrides had said in his statement, according to the defence.
The court will convene again on July 18 at 9.30am.
In previous proceedings, defence attorneys sought again to demonstrate that throughout the years the cabinet had total discretion on which naturalisation applications to recommend, seeking to deflect attention away from the defendants.