Nicos Clerides, the lawyer representing Sandy, the woman at the centre of a sweeping corruption and misconduct case triggered by journalist and parliamentary candidate Makarios Drousiotis, has described a dawn raid on his home and office as a “raid-style action,” saying police arrived in the early hours of Holy Saturday and have still not returned his active mobile phone four days later.
The raid is the latest development in a case that has shaken Cyprus’s political and judicial establishment. Drousiotis set off a political storm when he published a post titled “Paedophilia, sell-offs, surveillance and rigged trials,” alleging the existence of an organised network involving current and former officials, among them former President Nikos Anastasiades, Attorney General Giorgos Savvides, former MEP Demetris Papadakis, Legal Affairs Committee chairman Nikos Tornaritis and former Supreme Court judge Michalakis Christodoulou. All those named have denied the allegations. Police have described the investigation as serious and complex.
Speaking on CyBC, Clerides said five or six officers arrived led by the officer heading the investigation into the SMS messages at the heart of the case. He was asleep and not yet dressed. He asked for ten minutes, telling the officer he had palpitations. The officer pushed the door and entered.
“They behaved like terrorists. I said wait, sir, because I don’t feel well. When I wake up in the morning I need a little time. To wash my face, to shave, like everyone else. And I’m not 20, 30 or 50 years old,” he said. “They entered with an attitude — not polite — as if I were the worst criminal and they surrounded me.”
Clerides said he has 47 years of legal practice and has never faced such behaviour. He alleged the timing was not accidental. “It chose to enter my home in the early morning hours of Holy Saturday, which is the most sacred and most celebratory day of the Greek Orthodox calendar, when families are at home, when public services are not operating and when the entire country is observing a period of religious significance,” he said.
He handed over two USB drives containing approximately 1,000 SMS messages — material Sandy had passed to him around 2019 and which Drousiotis has maintained is authentic. Clerides refused to hand over two older phones, arguing that the devices which should be examined forensically are those used to send the messages to Sandy, not his. Police took his active mobile phone regardless, telling him the examination would take two or three hours.
Four days on, the phone had still not been returned. “I have a forensic opinion that there is no way an investigation of a phone takes four days,” he said, calling the continued retention illegal and theft. His lawyer Christos Clerides has written to the Attorney General and the Data Commissioner without response, he said.
Clerides noted that the officers’ behaviour changed entirely once colleagues were present at his office later that morning. “When I was alone I was treated like a terrorist and a criminal. When I had two colleagues and others present they were perfectly polite. Why?” he said.
He told officers the search was unconstitutional because the Attorney General’s permission had not been obtained, and that the offences under investigation had nothing to do with him. When he asked whether he was a suspect or accused, officers said no — but handed him a card setting out the rights of a suspect, he said.
Christodoulou, one of the central figures in the Drousiotis allegations, has publicly acknowledged knowing Sandy, saying he became acquainted with her between September 2020 and autumn 2021 and described his involvement as supportive. Papadakis, also named in the post, filed a criminal complaint against Drousiotis and subsequently presented private forensic findings from three mobile phones which he said showed no communication with any of the individuals named in the allegations.
“After this behaviour, which has essentially collapsed attorney-client privilege completely, through the behaviour of a state that can no longer be called a state under the rule of law but a parastate — I’m sorry to say it,” Clerides said. The seizure of his phone puts his clients’ confidential data at risk and could force him to close his practice, he warned.
Clerides said he intends to seek a certiorari order as soon as possible and demanded to know who ordered the raid. “I ask them: who gave you the orders to come and harass me? Ask the Police Chief that question, and the Justice Minister,” he said.
Sandy had been his client, Clerides said, until she retracted and said what she had told him was false — a position police have treated with scepticism, amid concern it may reflect pressure following the public furore rather than a considered account. Clerides has called for the case to be referred to GRECO, the Council of Europe’s anti-corruption body, saying he has no confidence in a domestic investigation. He described himself as a witness, not a suspect, noting he had already attended a seven-hour police interview and handed over all material he held.
The European Court of Human Rights has separately communicated an application against Cyprus in which Drousiotis alleges he was targeted by unlawful surveillance using advanced spyware. All allegations in the Drousiotis affair remain unverified. Those named have denied wrongdoing.
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