Allegations about underage sex, corrupt judges, big pay-offs and a secret brotherhood of politicians operating in the shadows that were posted on X some 10 days ago have been dominating the news and public debate ever since. People named in the allegations, including a former supreme court judge and an ex-MEP have dismissed all the claims, which are based on the contents of hundreds of text messages that came into the possession of journalist Makarios Drousiotis.

The text messages were obtained by a woman, known as ‘Sandy’ – the alleged victim of rape when she was 13 and, in theory, the key witness – who passed them on to her lawyer, Nikos Clerides seven years ago, who then passed them on to Drousiotis. Neither did anything about these very serious allegations, although Clerides had passed on a file about the case to the President of the Bar Association at the time, Christos Clerides. He claims not to have informed his brother Costas, who was the attorney-general, although the latter, without knowing anything about the case advised Nikos to share the information with people he trusted.

In the latest twist to the story, Nikos Clerides, who has been regularly making statements to the media about the case, told the Cyprus News Agency on Tuesday that he felt his life was in danger. “I am a very healthy person, and I hope it is not heard that I committed suicide or something similar,” he was quoted as saying. These sentiments were expressed after it was reported by police that ‘Sandy’ had denied the veracity of the text messages, claiming to police that they were fake as she had made them up. The police could not use her claims as an excuse not to investigate the allegations because there would be a public outcry.

Clerides had already pre-empted such a decision, by claiming that ‘Sandy’ had “denied everything because she was in a state of fear and had received orders from somewhere else.” There must be an investigation, if only to end the allegations and clear the names of all the people being accused of wrongdoing. Cyprus police could not be trusted to carry out this investigation, Clerides said, and called for an investigator from abroad to be appointed.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday Drousiotis handed police a dossier with hundreds of documents relating to the allegations. The contents will determine whether the attorney-general will order an investigation. In fact, an in-depth investigation carried out by an independent investigator is the only option available to the authorities because anything less would be considered an attempted cover-up by the political and legal establishment. If nothing is done, the documents could appear on social media causing another big, public outcry.