September 12 is when former House President Demetris Syllouris, ex opposition Akel MP Christakis Giovanis and two other people will appear before court in relation to a now discredited cash-for-passports scheme scrapped by Cyprus in late 2020 case.
This is what Philenews reported on Friday, the day after authorities filed charges against the four implicated in the scandal exposed by Al Jazeera network.
The other two people implicated are attorney Andreas Pittadjis and Antonis Antoniou – a senior officer in the Giovani development group.
The Attorney-General’s office filed five counts of conspiracy to defraud the state and untoward influence over public officials under a law penalising corruption, it said in a statement.
Authorities said the charges were related both to the expose by the Al Jazeera network and the findings of a board of inquiry last year.
Cyprus awarded citizenship to 6,779 people between 2007 and 2020, the vast majority of them Russians, under the scheme.
It abandoned the scheme after Al Jazeera secretly filmed the then parliamentary speaker allegedly promising to facilitate issuance of a passport to a fictitious investor with a criminal record.
The airing of the documentary, and the public outcry that it caused, prompted authorities to scrap the passport scheme. In its final form, the scheme issued passports to individuals for a minimum two million euro investment.