Nicosia criminal court on Monday agreed to hear by videoconference the testimony of a key prosecution witness in the ongoing trial relating to Cyprus’ now-defunct citizenship-by-investment programme.

In the case colloquially known as ‘the golden passports’, the three defendants are former House president Demetris Syllouris, ex-MP and businessman Christakis Giovani, and Giovani’s company director, Antonis Antoniou. They face five charges, including influence peddling and conspiracy to defraud, related to the naturalisation of foreign investors.

In October 2020 the Al Jazeera network had aired an almost hour-long expose of the affair, prompting Syllouris and Giovanis to both resign.

In the documentary, undercover reporters played the role of agents acting on behalf of a fictional Chinese businessman with a criminal record, aiming to secure him Cypriot citizenship.

Syllouris, Giovanis and others were shown offering to help the man in his quest for citizenship despite his (supposed) criminal record.

Having heard the prosecution’s request to allow the testimony of a witness currently living overseas, the judge agreed.

The witness is scheduled to testify by videoconference at the next trial hearing, set for February 10.

The witness in question is Tony Kay, a British estate agent involved in the Al Jazeera expose.
Currently in England, Kay had declined to travel to Cyprus, citing health issues and threats against him.

State prosecutor Charis Karaolidou said the witness had previously made five statements to the police regarding the case. But due to health issues, in October he had travelled to the United Kingdom.

The prosecutor presented as evidence the latest medical report on Kay dated January 29 of this year.
According to Karaolidou, Kay had personally met with all the defendants on matters pertaining to the charges, and as such as “has personal knowledge of the events”.

His testimony was therefore deemed material to the prosecution’s case.

Meanwhile a series of photographs and videos were shown in court on Monday. The material was extracted from a computer found in Kay’s home.

The visual evidence depicted the defendants – at times together and at other times separately – in the company of Chinese persons. Some of the evidence appeared to depict social gatherings, official visits, or conferences with Chinese letters in the background.

The evidence was presented to court by a police sergeant, testifying for the prosecution.

But during cross-examination by defence attorney Chris Triantafyllides, the sergeant admitted he did not personally know the premises where the photos and videos were taken.

This allowed Triantafyllides to submit to the court that this material is unrelated to the case.

Grilled further by another defence attorney, Giorgos Papaioannou, the sergeant stated that the visual evidence “is related to investors from China”.

The lawyer then focused specifically on one photograph showing a child sitting on Syllouris’ lap. He asked the witness whether this child might be a Chinese investor – to which the witness said no.

Elsewhere, Papaioannou asserted that Al Jazeera’s depiction of a Russian national as a fugitive was false. The person being referenced was Nikolay Gornovskiy, former chief of Russian multinational energy corporation Gazprom.

According to the lawyer, documents submitted during the course of the case show in fact that Gornovskiy has no criminal record either in Russia or his present country of domicile.