Nicosia criminal court on Tuesday allowed prosecutors to add one more person to their list of witnesses in the trial concerning the theft of thousands of documents from the central prisons.

Judge Christiana Parpotta granted the prosecution’s request to add the witness – a police officer who is to present exhibits found at the home of the chief prison warder, one of the eight defendants.

After the decision, lead prosecutor Vasilis Bisas said he would call the officer as the first witness.

However, at that point one of the defence lawyers asked for an adjournment, noting that Christos Triantafyllides, the attorney for defendant Anna Aristotelous, was away at a press conference.

Bisas did not object to an adjournment, leaving the matter to the court.

The judge granted the adjournment, but noted her dissatisfaction with the constant delays.

She set November 5 as the date for the next hearing.

The police officer’s testimony – now to take place on Thursday – will mark the start of the substance of the trial, which so far had been stuck in the discovery stage.

Discovery is the pre-trial process where opposing parties exchange information, evidence and witness lists to prevent ‘trial by ambush’ and narrow disputed issues.

On trial are the former director of the prisons Aristotelous, former vice-director Athena Demetriou, five prison wardens and a former employee of the prisons who is now a police officer.

They have all pleaded not guilty.

The indictment includes conspiracy to commit a felony, abuse of power, violation of official confidentiality, personal data processing offenses, theft by a civil servant, violation of the security rules for classified documents and illegal possession of property.

The documents cache was found in April 2025 in the house of a chief prison warden. There were approximately 48,000 documents.

Police had been searching the premises as part of an investigation into a different case.

Many of the documents are marked ‘confidential’ and ‘secret’ and are believed to have been removed illegally from the prisons between November and December 2022.

Aristotelous was serving as director of the central prisons at the time of the alleged unlawful removal of the documents, before leaving the post in late December 2022.