A lawyer at the centre of the private criminal prosecution over the death of Thanasis Nicolaou told a Limassol court on Friday that his life had been threatened — a claim the defence immediately dismissed as a lie designed to manipulate the proceedings.
Savvas Matsas, who had been acting as prosecutor in the case, stepped down from that role at the hearing, saying he intends to testify as a witness. He told the court he had been summoned to Lykavitos Police Station and handed a notice warning of threats to his life — and that fear for his safety was a reason for his withdrawal.
Defence lawyer Laris Vrachimis told the court that Matsas had gone to police himself after seeing a post online, filed his own complaint, and then obtained the notice at his own request. No threat had been confirmed by police, Vrachimis said. He accused Matsas of lying and of attempting to undermine the court. Lawyer Andriana Klaidi agreed, adding that Matsas — who compiled the charge sheet and gathered the evidence underpinning it — had a personal stake in validating his own findings.
When asked whether the alleged threat was even connected to the Nicolaou case, Matsas said he did not know. He was allowed to leave but chose to stay in the courtroom and watch.
Lawyer Christos Klerides took over as the prosecution’s representative and said he was ready to proceed, indicating he would seek to add witnesses to the indictment.
The case concerns the death of Nicolaou, a 26-year-old Australian-Cypriot national guardsman who was found under the Alassa bridge near Limassol in September 2005. Authorities twice ruled his death a suicide, but a third inquiry in 2024 concluded he had been strangled. The Supreme Court upheld that finding in February 2025. Despite the homicide ruling, the state legal service declined to bring charges, leaving his family to pursue a private prosecution carrying up to five years in prison — the maximum available in district court. The indictment lists 39 charges including conspiracy to obstruct justice, perjury, destruction of evidence, and the issuing of a falsified certificate by a public official.
The defence pressed a series of preliminary objections aimed at halting the case entirely. At the centre was the prosecution’s failure to hand over witness material by the court’s 9 March deadline — including the complainant’s signed testimony and summaries of what other witnesses were expected to say. Lawyers argued the breach of Article 7A of the Criminal Procedure Law had serious consequences and called for the prosecution to be terminated.
Lawyer Sotiris Argyrou went further, arguing that Matsas had acted as both investigator and prosecutor — compiling the very charge sheet he had been prosecuting — creating what Argyrou described as objective bias. Citing European Court of Human Rights rulings and the Pinochet case, he called for the indictment to be dismissed and proceedings stayed.
Defendant Christakis Kapiliotis, representing himself, raised an Attorney General’s letter to the family’s lawyer stating that the AG does not consent to the appointment of independent lawyers as prosecutor and does not consent to any prosecution in the case. The time elapsed since Nicolaou’s death was also cited as grounds to halt proceedings as an abuse of process.
Vrachimis rounded off the defence’s preliminary submissions by describing the case as an unprecedented attempt to undermine justice. The defendants, he said, had investigated what every inquiry had confirmed was a suicide — and had spent years being dragged through proceedings as a result.
The court adjourned at around 3pm without completing all submissions. The case resumes on 19 March.
The five defendants are forensic pathologist Panikos Stavrianos, who originally ruled Nicolaou’s death a suicide; Andreas Iatropoulos, then Limassol Police Director; Nikos Sofokleous, then head of Limassol CID; Christakis Nathanail, then head of the Rural Division; and Christakis Kapiliotis, then head of Lania Police Station.
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