The absence of a charge related to the salaries that Yiannis Yiannaki received from the Cyprus Youth Organisation (ONEK), where he was hired based on falsified documents, was highlighted during yesterday’s court proceedings for the case of the former Commissioner for Volunteerism.
His defence lawyer, Petros Stavrou, in his plea before the Nicosia District Court for a mitigated sentence, requested the greatest possible leniency. He presented his legal arguments and pointed out, among other things, that Yiannaki was not charged with offences of obtaining money through false pretences or money laundering.
In other words, based on the indictment, it appears that the Legal Service did not consider the fact that Mr. Yiannaki was receiving a salary based on a forged official document. This could potentially have a negative impact on any future attempt by the Republic to recover part of the salary he received due to the circulation of a forged official document, which he admitted to and which was the basis for his hiring by ONEK.
Certainly, based on what Mr. Stavrou stated, the absence of charges for financial offenses was part of his argument: “We respectfully submit that in the present case, the facts do not support the obtaining of any amount, nor were there any charges of obtaining or laundering included in the indictment, unlike the aforementioned rulings (he cited two relevant cases). It is clear that the number of incidents—two—is not comparable to the 14 in the Vakana case and the 249 in the Dimitriou case. Nor, of course, is the passage of time in those cases at all related to the present case. And no amount was obtained, again in contrast to the aforementioned cases. With all this in mind, Madam President, I call on you to show the greatest possible leniency towards the defendant.”
Furthermore, the decision by the Attorney General’s Office to suspend five of the eight total charges in the case of the former Commissioner for Volunteerism was also part of Mr. Stavrou’s argument. He specifically stated: “The defendant faced a total of eight charges. He admitted to three, and the rest were withdrawn by the Attorney General at the last hearing. This means, Madam President (addressing the Judge), that the defendant was ultimately justified in contesting these charges, as the ones that remained are the ones he admitted to on 2/4. (…) From the time I was appointed until the last hearing, the defendant was justified in contesting these charges. This is my argument. And as for any delay… it is the responsibility of the prosecuting authority. This should be taken into account in the time factor.”
It should be recalled that the Legal Service suspended five of the eight total charges on August 6. On 2/4/25, lawyer Petros Stavrou, who had taken over Giannakis’s defense a few days earlier, had stated on behalf of his client that he admitted to three charges of circulating a forged official document related to his high school diploma and a US university degree. He did not admit to the charges concerning the creation of the forged documents.
In addition, the defense lawyer focused on the fact that his client gained no advantage from the falsified high school diploma: “He admitted that in two instances he circulated forged documents. Specifically, on 10/2/95 a forged university degree and on 28/11/96, in the same application, he circulated the said university degree with two stamps and a high school diploma. From the facts presented, it appears that they came into the defendant’s possession for an unknown reason and in an unknown way, and he circulated them. He is not accused of having created or altered them. Hence the charges were withdrawn. I refer to the Leonidou case, where the Supreme Court stated ‘to state the obvious that someone can have committed the offense of circulating a forged document, which is a separate offense, without having forged it himself.’ For the high school diploma, although it is an official document, it had no purpose or use.”
Mr. Stavrou referred to the time the offenses were committed, which was 30 years ago, pointing out that his client was 31 and 32 years old, respectively, and is now 61. He cited case law to argue that this factor should be taken into account in sentencing.
Along with the written text of his plea, the defense lawyer also attached three letters. Petros Stavrou explained: “The first document is a letter sent by the European Commission to Cyprus when it came to audit the ‘Youth for Europe’ program, which the defendant was in charge of. It is the document in English. It is a letter dated 11/7/2002. The second letter is the letter that the Cyprus Youth Organization sent to the defendant, following the praise from the European Commission, conveying the thanks and congratulations of the Directorate-General for Education and Personnel of the European Commission for this specific program. And the third document is from the United Nations volunteers regarding his work as Commissioner for Volunteerism.”
The representative of the prosecuting authority, Marina Masoura, wanted to respond to two issues, one of which concerned the lawyer’s position that the delay was due to the prosecuting authority. Ultimately, she did not, as Judge Nicole Grigoriou ruled that it was not within the scope of the procedure. The judge scheduled the announcement of the sentence for September 11.