The Appellate Court on Thursday set aside a prior judgment by Larnaca criminal court that had acquitted all defendants in a case relating to the now-defunct citizenship-by -investment programme.

The court also ordered a retrial of the defendants by a criminal court under a different composition.

On November 4, 2022, Larnaca criminal court had handed down a verdict of not guilty in the case involving the naturalisation of an Iranian national. The defendants had faced charges of defrauding the Republic of Cyprus, forgery and circulation of fraudulent documents, securing registration under false pretences, concealment of assets, false declarations and money laundering.

The criminal court had cleared the defendants of all the charges – 34 counts in total. The defendants were individuals and companies that had facilitated the issuance of Cypriot citizenship to Iranian national Mehdi Ebrahimi Eshratabadi.

The defendants were: Harris Kyriakides (now deceased) and Michalis Kyriakides, partners in the Harris Kyriakides LLC law firm; the law firm itself; Viktoria Demetriadou, Eleni Kyrisavva and Polina Ioannou, directors of administrative services companies; and the administrative services companies Skalens Directors Ltd, Skalens Services Ltd and Skalens Trustees Ltd.

The attorney-general subsequently appealed the acquittal decision with the Appellate Court. Having examined the appeal, the appeals court found errors in the prior decision and ruled in favour of the attorney-general.

It also ordered a retrial the soonest possible.

According to a statement by the attorney-general’s office, the extent of the errors and omissions during the criminal trial did not permit the appeals court to retry the case itself.

A new trial will therefore take place by a Larnaca criminal court, but with different judges.

In its ruling, the Appellate Court said that despite the passage of time and the inconvenience of putting the defendants through a new trial, given the gravity of the offences it deemed that a retrial is necessary “in the interests of justice”.

The government nixed the citizenship-by-investment programme in late 2020, on the back of a series of damning reports by the Al Jazeera news network.