Cypriot lawyer Andreas Pittadjis has been acquitted of all charges related to the Golden Passport Scheme from the Nicosia criminal court.
Furthermore, he will now take on the role of a defence lawyer for one of the defendants, Antonis Antoniou.
Local media reports now raised the question if the Republic’s Legal Service dropped all charges against the lawyer because it had now decided that the testimonial material did not justify bringing him before a court – or was not sufficient to convict him – then this means that it was wrong to put him on the dock in the first place.
Following the Al Jazeera report over the Cyprus Citizenship-by-Investment scandal, Pittadjis, together with the former president of the Cypriot parliament, Demetris Syllouris, former Akel MP and developer Christakis Giovani and officer for the Giovani Group, Antonis Antoniou have been brought before the Nicosia Permanent Criminal Court as defendants related to offences of conspiracy to defraud and corruption.
Al Jazeera’s report called “The Cyprus Papers” revealed that all four men told undercover reporters that they were willing to help the criminal to acquire citizenship in Cyprus for a price.
Asked previously by an undercover reporter if he had changed a client’s name for a passport, Pittadjis replied laughing: “Of course, this is Cyprus!”
Through a Facebook post afterwards, the Cypriot lawyer said that he had been unjustly persecuted and unfairly betrayed, admitting no charges.
My soul was filled with bruises. My body was a punching bag that dripped with blood, sweat and tears. I accepted the merciless beatings of populism from all corners, who used my corpse as a stage to sell morality. They thirstily drank my tears and danced zembekiko with my pain.
The Golden Passport Scheme permitted wealthy foreigners to become a citizen in Cyprus and obtain this country’s passport for a minimum of €2.15 million investment. But Al Jazeera’s investigation led to protests and sparked fury in this country. Thus, the programme was scrapped in 2020 by the country’s authorities.
Stressing that with a dirty, edited, and fake video, Al Jazeera won a hybrid war, Pittadjis added that justice would only come if Antoniou and Giovani are exonerated after, according to him, they are still “unfairly on the cross of martyrdom”.
Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit gained access to documents revealing the identities of about 2,500 persons who paid to acquire citizenship in this country.
The same revealed that at least 60 people who bought passports would have been rejected as high-risk under rules introduced in 2019 and 2020.
