A 30-year-old Turkish Cypriot arrested for and accused of crimes related to the possession and circulation of child sexual abuse material was on Sunday charged and released.

Cenk Tosunoglu, the son of Turkish Cypriot independent ‘MP’ Hasan Tosunoglu, was arrested at the Ayios Dhometios checkpoint on Thursday crossing from the north and on Friday had been taken to Nicosia district court, which issued him a three-day remand.

Court proceedings on Friday were held behind closed doors, with the Cyprus News Agency reporting that the court had been told that the information leading to Tosunglu’s arrest had been gathered from an investigation carried out by the police cybercrime unit of the German state of Bavaria.

He had given his phone to the police and unlocked it for them to examine its contents.

However, police examinations of the content of the phone did not find anything to link him to the crimes he is being charged with.

The file has been handed to the legal service, which will consider the next steps.

His father described the accusations levelled against his son as “horrific disinformation”, claiming that it would be impossible for the European Union’s agency for law enforcement (Europol) to have put out an arrest warrant for his son to be arrested at the crossing point.

This, he said, is cause “everyone knows that Europol is an organisation which works with the TRNC police”.

But after his son’s release, Tosunoglu said it had brought him joy, but “I don’t know when the pain of these three dark days will subside. Our greatest strength during this process has been the boundless love and trust we feel for Cenk.”

He thanked those who stood by them from the beginning, without questioning his son’s innocence.