The attorney for one of the defendants in the ‘golden passports’ trial argued in court on Monday that one of the charges should be dropped, as it constitutes “abuse of power”.

On trial at Nicosia criminal court are former House president Demetris Syllouris and former Akel MP Christakis Giovani. They face charges of influence peddling and conspiracy to defraud, relating to the naturalisation of foreign investors in relation to the citizenship-via-investment scheme, scrapped in late 2020.

On Monday, Syllouris’ attorney Chris Triantafyllides sprang a surprise on the court, asking that one of the charges be dropped before the hearings go to closing arguments.

The lawyer argued that the charge in question had been signed off on by the deputy attorney-general, who while previously a member of the cabinet had taken part in the decision to green light the granting of a citizenship relating to the court case.

This constituted “abuse of power,” the attorney said.

He was referring to deputy AG Savvas Angelides, who had served as defence minister from March 2018 to June 2020.

The cabinet had the final say in approving or denying citizenship applications by foreign investors.

Triantafyllides’ request comes as the trial winds down. The examining and cross-examining of witnesses has been completed, leaving only the closing arguments from the prosecution and the defence.

The state prosecutor charged that Triantafyllides should have made the request earlier, as the matter of Angelides’ prior position was known from before.

Likewise, the judge was not enthusiastic about Triantafyllides’ motion but agreed to let him argue his reasons at the next hearing, scheduled for Thursday.

The indictments against the defendants were filed in July 2022 and the defendants first appeared in court in September of that year.

Initially, four people were in the dock. In addition to Syllouris and Giovani, authorities also charged lawyer Andreas Pittadjis and Antonis Antoniou, executive director of the Giovani Group, real estate developers. The charges against Pittadjis and Antoniou were subsequently dropped.

Hearings in the courtroom began in late 2024.

The ‘golden passports’ scandal was exposed in an Al Jazeera documentary aired in October 2020.

In the documentary, all four men told undercover reporters posing as proxies for a fictitious wealthy Chinese criminal that they were willing to help the criminal obtain a Cypriot passport and become a citizen of the European Union – for a price.

The four men said that they would help the criminal acquire a passport through the Cyprus citizenship-via-investment programme under which passports could be issued for a minimum of €2.15 million investment.

However, under Cypriot law, convicted criminals were barred from benefiting from the programme.