The Resignation of the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General Is a Prerequisite for Impartiality
Statements by the member of the Political Bureau of AKEL and AKEL MP Aristos Damianou
21 June 2026, ‘HARAVGI’ newspaper
The Anti-Corruption Authority’s recent report contains very serious allegations regarding the possible commission of criminal offenses by public officials, primarily by Mr. Nicos Anastasiades.
For AKEL, which for the past ten years has been denouncing that during the administration of Nikos Anastasiades and DISY, institutional entanglement and corruption in the country skyrocketed, these findings come as no surprise.
The priority right now is to create the preconditions for an objective and impartial conclusion to the criminal investigations. A prerequisite for this is the removal of the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General from the Legal Service, since, as former Ministers appointed by the former President Nicos Anastasiades, they lack the necessary external credibility at the institutional level. This is what is known as objective impartiality. Their so-called self-recusal is not a solution, since the Constitution is clear. They have exclusive jurisdiction over criminal prosecutions. Nor can other prosecutors act without their guidance, especially since the investigation concerns the former President of the Republic.
Moreover, their series of actions has demonstrated that, whenever there was interference in investigations involving the ruling DISY party and the Presidency, they acted with deliberation. The most glaring example was the suspension of criminal proceedings against the former Israeli agents in the case involving the black spy van.
Certainly, on a political level, the current DISY leadership is completely exposed, since—through legal technicalities and pretexts—it fails to politically distance itself from Mr. Anastasiades. Indeed, what do they have to say about the fictitious invoices, as mentioned in the Report, used to conceal Mr. Anastasiades’s funding from the major banker Vgenopoulos?
AKEL will insist on a full investigation, criminal prosecution, and exemplary punishment to be delivered for all those proven in court to be involved. No one will be exempt. No matter how high up they may be. The responsibility of the current President—who served as Mr. Anastasiades’s right-hand man for nine years—to ensure that there is no cover-up is enormous.
