President Christodoulides must take a clear position
Statement by Aristos Damianou, AKEL Political Bureau member and Head of the Legal Affairs Section of AKEL
6 March 2024, AKEL C.C. Press Office, Nicosia
President Christodoulides announces at every opportunity his zero tolerance of any corruption and entanglement/interwoven interests, having of course served for nine consecutive years as the right hand man of Nicos Anastasiades. At the same time, his own government has been pushing for the implementation of sanctions [on Turkey], not only legally binding UN sanctions, possibly EU sanctions too, but even for the application of sanctions by individual states as well, which obviously serve their own agendas/experiences.
We would for that reason expect the President, when the US is now moving to impose sanctions against the former Israeli agent Dillian and companies of his own interests, that his government would take a clear stand [on the issue].
We recall that AKEL, through the exercise of parliamentary scrutiny as well, has repeatedly denounced the institutional entanglement/interwoven interests by the then Anastasiades-DISY government ruling forces in the handling of the former Israeli agent’s activities. We recall that the European Parliament denounced Cyprus for the tolerance it had showed by the government ruling forces towards those who were active in Cyprus in the production, distribution and export of dual-use spyware, software that was demonstrably used for illegal activities.
We have spoken clearly about the existence of a hothouse for the production of illegal software for the surveillance of citizens, politicians, activists, journalists and others.
We spoke about the political interconnectedness of the then ruling DISY party, but also of state structures, both covert and overt.
AKEL also talked about the black spy van, about the illegal surveillance with antennas at Larnaca airport.
In addition, we talked about the Pegasus and Predator scandal, about the violation of citizens’ privacy.
For that reason we pose the following questions to President Christodoulides:
- Firstly, what is his position on the fact that under the Anastasiades administration, of which he was a member of the Council of Ministers, with political interventions, Dillian was let off scot-free, at the same time as there was an ongoing criminal prosecution against him which was suspended?
- Secondly, what is his position on the fact that the Republic of Cyprus has in this case too lost its credibility, since it turned a blind eye and permitted the circulation, sale and export of illegal software to Greece and third countries with the knowledge of the Anastasiades government and to a very large extent as a result of complicity and corruption?
- Thirdly, why does his government continue to tolerate the production of dual-use software in Cyprus?
Since the President proclaims his adherence to transparency, let him therefore state his position clearly [on the issue].
06.03.2024
