Attorney General George Savvides and Assistant Attorney General Savvas Angelides met with police on Friday to discuss court cases of alleged illegal naturalisations under the Cyprus Citizenship by Investment programme.
These meetings have been established for the better coordination of the two bodies and according to information, there soon will be developments in some of these cases, daily Phileleftheros explains.
One case concerns the passport of Egyptian businessman Mohammed Salem and his offspring, for whom the trial date has been set for January 13, 2023.
Salem, his two sons and his daughter seem to have invested €6 million in immovable properties to get Cypriot citizenship. However, it appears that €1.5 million has been returned to them while the relevant apartments in Limassol have not been built. At the same time, the indictment points out that the specific apartments were declared as the Salem family’s main and permanent residences in a bid to pay reduced VAT tax.
In addition to the case of the family of Salem, another two cases will go to court.
One involves Jordanian businessman Almi Hilmi Munib Armoush, Zaineh Ali Himli Armoush, Nikolay Gornovskiy, as well as a Chinese investor with a criminal record.
The third case concerns Iranian Mehdi Ebrahimi Eshratabadi, who became a Cypriot under the name Tony Newman.
The defendants in the first case are former House Speaker Demetris Syllouris, former AKEL MP Christakis Giovani, lawyer Andreas Pittadjis and Giovani’s business associate, Antonis Antoniou. They face charges of conspiracy and corruption.
The case will be tried on October 26 at the Nicosia Assizes Court.
The case of the Iranian has been completed and the verdict is expected on 4 November 4.
© In-Cyprus.com
Sadly, as many of you will understand, a strand of the Prosecution of this case has unravelled. On 14 October the Cyprus Mail included an article entitled “Setback for prosecution in golden passports case“.