Investigations are ongoing into the unlawful removal of a massive trove of documents from the central prisons, reports said on Tuesday, with the ex-governor of the prisons also having been summoned to give a statement to the police.

Former prisons governor Anna Aristotelous, currently holding the post of acting permanent secretary at the defence ministry, gave police a statement on Monday. She was seen arriving at CID headquarters accompanied by her lawyer.

More than 100 persons have given depositions to police, including Athena Demetriou – Aristotelous’ former aide at the central prisons.

Investigators are convinced the theft of the documents took place between November and December 2022. Aristotelous served as the prisons governor at the time. She left the post in late December of that year.

Said to consist of some 300,000 pages, the cache includes documents marked as ‘confidential’ and ‘secret’. They include architectural schematics of the central prisons, original files, copies bearing authentic signatures, dossiers on inmates, CCTV footage from the prisons, and correspondence between the Department of Corrections and other government departments.

Police had found the documents in early April during a search of the home of a prison warden. The premises were searched as part of an investigation into a different case – an alleged scam involving a convict buying items from the prison canteen and selling them to other inmates at an inflated price.

Earlier, authorities had arrested five persons – four women and one man – in connection to the documents case. The suspects – four prison wardens and a police cadet – were subsequently released without being charged, but it’s understood they remain persons of interest in the investigation. They have not been reinstated to active duty.

They were suspected of conspiring to commit a criminal offence, conspiring to commit a misdemeanor, abuse of power, breach of official secrecy, breach of privacy laws, and unlawful possession of property.

According to media reports, the documents had been taken out of the prisons via a staircase near the complex’s administrative offices. On some occasions, prisons department vehicles were reportedly used to transport the documents out of the prison.