Lawyer Nicos Clerides has described police raids on his home and office in Nicosia on Holy Saturday over the Sandy case as a “terrorist act”, in remarks published by Greek news website Documento.
Speaking to Documento, Clerides said the warrant was issued in the early hours of Holy Saturday so he would not have time to challenge it through the courts. He said six police officers knocked on the door of his home at 7.30 am while he was asleep.
“It was a terrorist act. They woke me up and their behaviour was worse than the British during the EOKA period. I asked for a few minutes and they did not allow it. I had heart palpitations. They pushed me against the door to get in. One of them was in fact a senior officer,” Clerides told the Greek website.
He said he told officers he considered their actions unlawful and unconstitutional and that he did not consent to searches of his devices or to the taking of electronic files or other material.
According to Clerides, officers ignored his objections and went ahead with the search at his home and later at his office, where two lawyers known to him were present as witnesses.
Describing the office search, Clerides said officers entered keywords into a computer and searched for specific matters that, according to him, had nothing to do with the investigation they claimed to be carrying out.
“They were searching for companies linked to Vgenopoulos, for project Helix, for Cypriot funds and banks, as well as various people. They found nothing, however,” he told Documento.
Clerides said police opened a safe and seized files linked to the Sandy case as well as three or four USB devices. He also said they took his mobile phone and two other phone devices.
According to Clerides, officers told him his mobile phone would be returned within two or three hours, but two days later, he had still not received it back because, he said, they told him: “We sent it to Europol.”
The Greek website said Clerides also referred to “shocking illegal actions” and said he could not rule out that those directing the officers were interested in Viber conversations. He also alleged that security officers were moving around on the stairs of the office building.
In its report, Documento described Clerides as a key figure in the Sandy case because he holds material linked to the affair first brought to light by Makarios Drousiotis and followed by Documento’s own reporting.
The report said screenshots containing what it described as explosive messages had earlier been sent to Europol laboratories to examine their authenticity on the initiative of the Cypriot government.
Documento also said the case had triggered major political fallout in Cyprus, including the removal of parliamentary candidate Dimitris Papadakis from the ballot of the Alma party by decision of its executive secretariat.
The report further said the messages had become the subject of political and criminal investigation in Cyprus, while people mentioned in them denied their authenticity and cited information that Sandy had herself recently told Cypriot authorities that the messages were fabricated.
It ended by asking why, if Sandy had indeed fabricated the messages herself and committed a serious offence, she remained free.
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