WHEN reports appeared a few weeks ago about a police raid on the home of a senior prison warden which uncovered a large amount of graded state documents, that should have been in the filing cabinets of the Nicosia central prisons, it was easy to dismiss this as just another case of traditional public service incompetence.
There was however a clear attempt by the police, through leaks to the media and statements by their spokespeople, to make this a big story of great national importance. We kept being reminded that these were confidential documents, their disclosure a violation of personal data and their removal from the prisons a big crime.
Before long, the cops were saying that the documents, which they claimed numbered 300,000, had allegedly disappeared when the saintly Anna Aristotelous was director of the prisons, and hacks friendly with the police started agitating for her suspension and an investigation.
Once the darling of the media, Aristotelous has suddenly become public enemy number one over some crappy documents nobody gave a shite about and that could have been stolen long after she left the post of prison director. Leading virtue-signalling hacks were baying for her blood.
The government prevaricated for a few days and then gave in to the media pressure, suspending her from the post of acting permanent secretary of the defence ministry by cabinet decision on Wednesday.
THIS HAD ‘police set-up’ written all over it. It was so childish in its conception and so crude in its execution that it could only have been the work of our intellectually limited cops.
And it would be no surprise if this were a continuation of an ongoing feud between Aristotelous and assistant chief of police Michalis Katsounotos that goes back to 2022, when the former accused the latter of attempted blackmail for being in contact with a convicted criminal whom he had asked to find compromising film footage of the prison chief and her assistant Athena Demetriou.
This led to his suspension and an independent investigation, which found that there was no evidence of the criminal offence of corruption. AG George Savvides claimed this showed there were no grounds for a criminal investigation (not in the public interest, he said), although there could be a disciplinary investigation of Katsounotos for abuse of authority and committing the offence of conspiracy.
Aristotelous and Demetriou were so furious with this decision they submitted their resignations from the central prisons and demanded a transfer elsewhere in the public service, which they were granted in mid-2023.
KATSOUNOTOS had not suffered any negative consequences for his bizarre behaviour. He stayed in his post as head of the drug squad and in February of this year was promoted to assistant chief of police. No disciplinary investigation was held for the abuse of authority and conspiracy the AG had spoken about until his promotion.
Phil reported on Friday that a disciplinary investigation of Katsounotos commenced on Thursday, when he appeared before a disciplinary judicial body. He had been summoned to appear a week earlier, said the paper, suggesting that the decision for the investigation was taken this month, two and a half years after the AG said there were grounds for it.
Katsounotos enjoys such an astonishing degree of political backing (Nik I gave him a host of promotions and offered him protection while Nik II made him assistant chief) that instead of being investigated, he was promoted to second in command of the police force.
WHY HE IS deserving of such political protection, I cannot say. He also has the protection of the AG’s office, but for that there is a reason. Katsounotos refused to answer any questions when called by the authority against corruption to give evidence in a case of conflict of interest involving deputy AG Savvas Angelides.
Angelides had been accused of corruption by the auditor-general Odysseas for dropping a case against a suspect that had been a client of the Angelides law office; Katsounotos, who was also involved in the case, stayed silent, incurring the wrath of the authority’s president, but aware that the indebted deputy AG would not have taken any proceedings against him.
APOLOGIES for all this background, but it is necessary to understand what is happening now.
The police, perhaps on orders from assistant chief, have decided to go after Aristotelous because there were plans that Prezniktwo, whose full favour she enjoyed, would make her permanent secretary at the defence ministry.
After losing the feud with Katsounotos, the saintly Anna swore allegiance to Nik II and has been generously rewarded. A few months after his election, in June 2023, he appointed her Commissioner of Humanitarian Affairs, while in November last year, he made her acting perm sec at the defence ministry, with the aim of making perm sec when promotions were to be announced this June.
The Prez tried to protect her, when the ludicrous, fabricated police story emerged but being a rather weak people-pleaser he eventually gave in to media virtue-signallers Tsouroullis and Kallinikou and offer Anna to the mob.
ANOTHER source of pressure on the Prez came from the unlikeliest source – the holier than thou Odysseas – whose one-man movement Alma joined the witch-hunt and called for her immediate suspension.
Was it not this same Odysseas who, in January 2023, when Anna and her sidekick Athena tendered their resignation and sought a transfer offered to hire them at the audit office (it was still his family business back then). He issued a public statement saying there were always positions for good and honest civil servants at the audit office.
Why, all of a sudden, was he publicly calling for the immediate suspension of this good and honest civil servant he was keen to employ at the audit office two-and-a-half years ago? Because she had snubbed him. Instead of taking an oath of allegiance to Odysseas in January 2023, she chose to offer her loyalty to little Nikos, who at the time was a presidential candidate.
It was the right decision as her lord generously rewarded her (see above) for her loyalty. Her only mistake was that she underestimated Odysseas’ fragile ego and unbridled lust for revenge. He was more than happy to buy the cops’ dubious story about the discovery of the 300,000 documents and the claim that Anna was to blame.
And it was no coincidence that Kallinikou, Odysseas’ zealous disciple at Phil had been hysterically calling for her suspension. Forgiveness is not on offer to anyone who betrays Odysseas; Katsounotos will ensure the perpetrator is punished.
PHIL publisher and owner Nicos Pattichis explained to his staff why he accepted the “strategic investment” in his media group by the fabulously wealthy businessman Costas Kleanthous. A video of his speech was posted on X by irreverent twitterer Jho Low. This is what Pattichis had to say to his employees:
“It is truly an historic day and we are, with Myrto (his co-owner), very, very happy because we welcome to our family a very, very, very good pedi (kid). Ten months I have known him, and we had a lot conversations for him to persuade me why he wanted to come into Phileleftheros, why he wanted to help Phileleftheros.
“I made him this way (gesticulation that he gave him a roasting), and allow me to have the certainty at 63, having met a lot of people, that it is one thing that he is a good businessman but the most important is that he is the best pedi, he is like a moro (baby) – he is pure, he is clean, he is a patriot…”
If he was not a very, very, very good kid and pure like a baby, I am certain Pattichis and Myrto would have refused to take the millions he paid them for his strategic investment.
GLAD to see that, at long last, others are writing about our Prez’s laughable delusions of grandeur, which until very recently only our disreputable establishment highlighted.
Last Sunday, Kathimerini editor Marina Economidou devoted a whole column to Iran’s denial of our wannabe world statesman Prez that Tehran asked him to pass on several messages to Israel’s PM.
She wrote by way of introduction: “They say that megalomania is the refuge of the insecure, that nothing is more dangerous than someone believing he is more important than he is in reality. And also that arrogance is born when delusion wears the cloak of certainty for everything.”
His delusions also featured in Athens newspaper Ta Nea. Columnist Stefanos Kasimatis asked what possessed the Prez to “trumpet that Cyprus was mediating for peace between Israel and Iran? OK, he is not capable. But you cannot call him an incompetent, because it would give a bad name to incompetence.”
THE ONLY columnist that buys the presidential delusions of grandeur, is Phil’s bashpatriotic columnist Michalis Ignatiou, probably because he suffers from them as well. In last Sunday’s column he showed off his ability to see the future.
He wrote: “Syria will follow of course and in the end the mother of clashes will take place between Turkey and Israel. Things are simple.” The clairvoyant columnist, disappointingly, gave no indicative date for the mother of clashes to help us plan our holidays. Hopefully he will do it in another column.
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