The Legal Service is preparing decisions in four high-profile cases that have gripped public attention. Following its recent announcement in the matter concerning the former Auditor-General’s public statements and the alleged contempt of court, focus now shifts to: the inquiry into Takata airbags, the file on former Cyprus Football Association president Giorgos Koumas, the trove of Central Prisons documents found at a chief warder’s home, and the Anti-Corruption Authority’s report involving former EDEK leader Marinos Sizopoulos. Whether criminal prosecutions will follow in each case is expected to provoke renewed debate.
Takata airbags: Criminal probe and two deaths under review
The Investigative Committee’s report on Takata airbags has been with the Legal Service since July 11, 2025 and was published on July 15. Nearly three months on, the Committee recommends criminal scrutiny of four individuals: former Transport Minister Marios Demetriades, former Transport Ministry Permanent Secretary Alekos Michailidis, and former Department of Road Transport directors Sotiris Kolettas and Yiannis Nikolaidis.
The Legal Service has referred the report to the Police; a HQ CID team is investigating serious offences, including homicide, in connection with two deaths attributed to defective airbags: 24-year-old Kyriakos Oxinos (January 24, 2023, Nicosia) and 19-year-old Styliani Giorgalli (October 21, 2024, Avgorou-Frenaros road). Disciplinary proceedings against public officers are also anticipated (outside the Legal Service’s remit).
Koumas file: From ethics findings to criminal inquiry
In the case of former CFA president Giorgos Koumas, the Legal Service appointed criminal investigator Alexandra Lykourgos after the Ethics and Sports Protection Committee’s probe - conducted by lawyers Elias Stefanou and Efthymios Efthymiou - found an incompatibility relating to his office and TV rights management. The investigator has delivered her report. Koumas resigned as CFA president on June 3, 2025. Statements have been taken from persons under examination, including Koumas. After additional steps requested by police investigators, the file has returned to the Legal Service for assessment and next steps.
Central Prisons: 48,430 documents seized from Chief Warder’s home
A separate file now before the Legal Service concerns thousands of documents discovered at a chief warder’s residence, material police believe originated in the Central Prisons directorate offices. The HQ CID team proposes criminal charges against specific individuals.
During an April 10, 2025 search, initially linked to a separate probe into an alleged illegal canteen inside the prisons, police seized 48,430 documents comprising 250,464 pages, stored in two locked rooms. According to a recent Supreme Court decision concerning the retention order, the documents, which were allegedly held without authorisation, included architectural, topographic and spatial plans of the Nicosia Central Prisons; inmate files; disciplinary investigation records; internal correspondence, reports and lists of prison service matters; police documents; inter-agency correspondence; and letters exchanged between the Prisons Department and other state bodies and officials. Many were marked “Secret” or “Confidential.”
The Sizopoulos timeline: Why immunity was not lifted in 2020
The Anti-Corruption Authority’s recent report involving former EDEK president Marinos Sizopoulos brings renewed scrutiny, alongside a key question: why, after police sought the lifting of his parliamentary immunity in July 2020, was no action taken and the file archived?
Police began investigating in 2019 alleged offences (2017-2019), including conspiracy to commit felonies, conspiracy to defraud, theft by company officers, theft by agent, forgery, circulation of forged documents, obtaining property by false pretences, fraud in sale or mortgage of property, causing execution of a document by false pretences, fraudulent appropriation or false accounts by company officers, securing registration by false pretences, and money laundering.
The case centres on the sale of roughly 1,000 shares in Taxan Properties Developers Ltd by IO Ktimatiki, Bacteon Developments Ltd, and Y.K. Ioannou Constructions Ltd (250 shares each) to Mohammed Sadeq M. Ibrahim (Iraqi passport holder). In February 2019, the Tax Department notified Y.K. Ioannou Constructions of €9,707 in capital gains tax arising from a sale agreement dated October 4, 2017 with a stated value of €2,025,000. Complainants from Y.K. Ioannou Constructions, Brostok Developments and IO Ktimatiki say the share sale was based on a different agreement dated October 17, 2017, valuing the transaction at €1.6 million, and that they only learned of the October 4, 2017 document via the Tax Department’s letters. Sizopoulos was among Taxan Properties Developers’ shareholders.
A businessman and Sizopoulos associate, A.H., was arrested in July 2019 and gave a voluntary statement admitting involvement while advancing various claims; documents were seized from his home and office, and he was released the same day. On October 7, 2019, the file went to the Legal Service to consider seeking the lifting of Sizopoulos’ immunity to obtain a formal statement. On November 5, 2019, the file was returned to police for further checks on A.H.’s claims, then resubmitted on December 6, 2019.
A January 21, 2020 meeting, attended by the Attorney-General, two state attorneys, and two police investigators, reviewed the facts and evidence with a view to possible prosecution. The Attorney-General kept the case for further study. Approximately six months later, on July 27, 2020, the Legal Service instructed that no steps be taken to lift Sizopoulos’ parliamentary immunity, and the matter remained archived.
What happens next
All four files -Takata airbags, Koumas, the Central Prisons documents and the Sizopoulos affair- are now before the Legal Service for decisions on whether to proceed with criminal prosecutions. Given the public interest they have generated, the forthcoming rulings are certain to reignite discussion.