The report documenting the findings of the committee formed to investigate the history of faulty airbags in Cyprus and their import into the country recommended that criminal charges be brought against three people.

It also recommended that disciplinary charges be brought against five others.

Attorney-General George Savvides on Friday took receipt of the report, with the committee’s chairman, former Supreme Court judge Michalakis Christodoulou outlining the reasons behind his recommending of criminal charges.

Those charges relate to the cases involving Alexandros Lougos, who suffered life-altering injuries as a result of a faulty airbag in 2017, and of Styliani Giorgalli and Kyriakos Oxinos, who were both killed in accidents involving faulty airbags.

Christodoulou said that in light of those three incidents, “we base our assessment on the actual context of whether it is established that there were criminal offences committed”, and that “the committee’s response is positive”.

“We have presented the findings of our investigation. The attorney-general is responsible for whether to adopt the recommendations, and the courts are the final judge,” he added.

“We found a possibility of there having been an abuse of power, a homicide, causing death due to a reckless act, and serious injury to Alexandros Lougos.”

Christodoulou had been joined on the committee by Bar Association chairman Michael Vorkas and audit office member Theodosios Hadjimichail.

For a little over two months, it conducted public hearings into the matter, interviewing numerous civil servants and ministers past and present.

The issue of airbags stems from the production of faulty airbags by Japanese company Takata. The company’s airbags suffer a fault related to exposure to high levels of heat or humidity, which means they have a tendency to explode when released under such circumstances.

This explosion shoots the airbag’s metal inflator outwards and in the direction of the person it was designed to protect, potentially causing further injuries or, in some cases, death.

With the report now in Savvides’ hands, he will study its findings and decide whether or not any criminal or disciplinary offences were committed, and whether the committee’s recommendations for future safeguarding and oversight should be implemented.

“I receive today the report of the investigative committee, which I appointed to conduct a thorough investigation into the circumstances, events, actions and responsibilities, in relation to the import of vehicles from third countries,” Savvides said.

He added that the committee’s terms of reference were “broad”.

“Our intention is for the findings to be made public with minimal redactions for personal data,” he said.

Christodoulou had earlier said the committee’s hearings had been “conducted without problems”, before outlining the report’s contents.

He said it consists of nine chapters, beginning with “the Cypriot reality in the global context regarding recalls”.

“On the global stage, it began in 2010 in the United States, where hundreds of thousands of recalls took place, and expanded globally with over 100 million recalls,” he said.

He added that the first chapter also makes reference to the cases involving Lougos, Oxinos, and Giorgalli.

“The problem began to be known after the death of Kyriakos Oxinos and with the efforts of his mother,” he said, adding that Transport Minister Alexis Vafeades had ordered an administrative investigation into the matter last year.

Then, he said, cabinet had appointed a committee to investigate further, but this committee “did not start an investigation”.

“With the way we worked, we have the impression that we obtained a comprehensive understanding of what was happening in the period that concerns us – that is, from 2013 to 2023. Why is that? Because in 2013, the first warning was sent to the consumer protection service about an accident which had occurred in Portugal,” he said.

He added that thereafter, a total of 73 such warnings had been sent, while two individuals wrote to the road transport department “about the global campaign to solve the problem”.

“Always, it did nothing, except provide information to distributors,” he said.

He said the report’s second chapter provides information about the investigations carried out by the police and the electromechanical service and the failure to take measures.

The third chapter, he added, delved into the matter of relevant European Union laws and “the obligations of those involved, including the state”.

“As the current road transport department director [George Louca] and transport minister mentioned, they consider the problem of recalls for grey vehicles to be intractable. If one looks at the proposals of Europe, it is not so intractable. It could be solved with regulatory acts and decrees,” he said.

Grey vehicles are cars which are imported second-hand privately.

The report’s fourth chapter focuses on a circular issued by the road transport department in 2017, which Vafeades had told the committee had “exempted distributors from any responsibility” regarding ‘grey vehicles’ and the recall thereof, “without defining an alternative mechanism for informing the owners”.

Christodoulou said on Friday that “with the 2017 circular, the road transport department exempted distributors from liability for used vehicles but did not say how the problem would be resolved if a recall occurred”.

He added that last year’s administrative investigation into the matter “concluded that the investigation did not identify any disciplinary offences”.

“We disagree with this finding. We agree with the findings, but we disagree with the result. Not only were there disciplinary offences, there may have been an abuse of power. The road transport department did not have the authority to absolve the distributors. Only legislation can do this,” he said.

He then skipped to the matter of the report’s seventh chapter, saying that this refers to the testimony given by transport ministers past and present, while the eighth chapter includes the observations of the committee itself.

“We explain how the Republic of Cyprus dealt with the recalls. We then refer to supervision, with the observation that supervision was exhausted by examining one vehicle for every 40,000. Several observations are made in relation to the road transport department, the police, the road safety council, and errors are identified,” he said.

In the report’s ninth and final chapter, he said, responsibilities are apportioned.

“It is the committee’s recommendation to examine whether disciplinary offences have been committed by public servants, and that they have shown inaction and indifference to the matter of Takata airbags, resulting in the loss of two lives and the life of Alexandros Lougos being altered,” he said.

“While they knew or should have known, they showed inaction and indifference and failed to heed the warnings issued by the consumer protection service and failed to heed the warnings laid out in letters from the public.”

He added that there was also a “lack of good judgment” on the part of both the police and the electromechanical services on the matter.

The road transport department, he said, “did not exercise the duty imposed by law, warning the public about the dangers of the airbags and taking preventative measures”.