DISY must strip Nicos Anastasiades of his title of Honorary President, said former Member of Parliament and member of the party’s Political Bureau, Christos Pourgourides, who, speaking on the Alpha News program, expressed the view that there are indisputable acts of corruption that do not require an investigation to be proven. As examples, Mr. Pourgouridis cited the use of an oligarch’s aircraft—an oligarch with ties to the government—as well as the handling of citizenship applications by the law firm that bore the name of the former President of the Republic—applications that were subsequently brought before the Council of Ministers, which Mr. Anastasiades chaired.

“I do not take into account the fact that investigations into criminal offenses are pending when demanding that the party remove him from its collective bodies. What I am saying the party must do concerns matters that are not in dispute and are not under investigation, such as, for example, accepting a plane from someone connected to the government; that is a clear-cut act of conflict of interest, as is the fact that a law firm bearing your name reviews applications for citizenship for foreigners, which are then examined by the Council of Ministers, which you preside over,” he said.

“While we insist that criminal offenses must exist for someone to be considered guilty of corruption, we are playing an extremely dangerous and distasteful game,” Mr. Pourgourides remarked, adding that “acts of corruption are numerous, and many of them may be acts of corruption that do not constitute criminal offenses.”

“Yes, he should be stripped of his title as honorary President of DISY for acts that are thoroughly proven and indisputable. This is nothing new.”

He also said that he expects DISY to take a public and forthright stance on such issues “and not to look for excuses where there are none.”

“In a party whose mission is to set an example for society through its conduct —something that applies to all parties and everyone involved in politics—I insisted that decisions had to be made regarding many actions that were taking place and which, in my view, required no scrutiny, because it was self-evident that these were actions inconsistent with the ethics of proper political life.”

Lawyer Giorgos Christofidis also spoke on the program about the same issue, particularly the legal aspects of the “Mafia State” report, explaining that “The problem begins at the very start, at the point where the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General decided to recuse themselves—that is, to refrain from exercising their constitutional powers.”

“The Prosecutorial Council was conceived as a body that ensures integrity, etc., and which could handle the matter of reviewing the investigation and, in cooperation with the police, conducting the criminal inquiry into the case. However, since these prosecutors report to the Attorney General and his Deputy, we saw the reaction the day before yesterday from the Prosecutors’ Council, which decided not to get involved, not even to review the findings themselves, and to refer the matter to the Council of Ministers and the police”

The Council of Ministers, Mr. Christofides added, is the body that will designate the individuals, the terms, and the timeline for the criminal investigation of this case in light of the findings, and once it has selected the individuals to serve as criminal investigators, it will announce their names and assign them their powers and the scope of those powers.

Regarding the terms of the criminal investigation mandate, Mr. Christofides assessed that they “will revolve around what the report states and what emerges from it.”

Referring to the issue of immunity, Mr. Christofides clarified that the President of the Republic does not have lifelong immunity. On the other hand, because the Attorney General has recused himself, “the matter will be brought either before the Supreme Constitutional Court, or directly before the Criminal Court when and if the time comes, which may in turn refer the matter to the Supreme Constitutional Court for a ruling.”

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