The Supreme Court of Cyprus has ruled as lawful the arrest of an Azeri national detained since June 2025 on suspicion of terrorism against the British Bases at Akrotiri and espionage targeting the Andreas Papandreou Air Base in Paphos.
The court dismissed the appeal, which had challenged the warrants on the basis of unreliable intelligence, upholding the process that linked the suspect to the offences, allegedly in contact with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The appeal, lodged by the appellant’s lawyer, Efstathios Efstathiou, aimed to challenge the warrants—issued on 21 June 2025—which covered charges including conspiracy to commit a felony and offences under the Law on Combating Terrorism.
The appellant argued that the initial court had relied on “unverifiable information from a third country” and engaged in “circular reasoning,” failing to apply the “increased evidential scrutiny” required for anonymous or secret intelligence.
The Supreme Court, however, concluded that the District Court was correctly guided by legal principles and made a comprehensive and correct assessment of the totality of the evidence. The court clarified that the initial oath referred to intelligence from a “foreign collaborating Service,” not a “third country,” and that the key legal issue was whether the information substantiated a reasonable suspicion, not its origin.
Crucially, the Supreme Court noted that the initial intelligence—that the appellant was gathering information on foreign military presence and might be organising an immediate terrorist attack—was confirmed by subsequent physical surveillance conducted by Cypriot authorities.
This combination of intelligence and physical observation was judged sufficient to justify the warrants. The Supreme Court stated: “We judge that the trial court conducted a comprehensive and correct assessment of the totality of the evidence and evaluated every relevant element to conclude that the issuance of the warrants was justified.”
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