CYTA boss arrested

The boss of Cyprus Telecommunications Authority (CyTA) Stathis Kittis was yesterday arrested and taken in for questioning as the investigation into the Dromolaxia land deal fraud deepened.
A district court judge also issued another three arrest warrants against CyTA Senior Marketing Manager Yiannis Souroula, CyTA trade union (EPOET) head Orestis Vasiliou – who is also head of the Cytavision department – and Land Registry Officer Grigoris Souroula, the brother of Yiannis.
According to police, the Souroula brothers and Kittis are under investigation for charges relating to conspiracy to commit a crime, fraud, abuse of authority and bribery and will appear before a Larnaca District Court judge today where police are set to request that they be kept in police custody while the investigations continue.
Vasiliou is currently abroad but is said to have made contact with investigators and is expected to return to the island soon according to state television.
Kittis’ name was given to investigators by Alki football club chairman and Larnaca businessman, Nicos Lillis.
Last month, Lillis was arrested in connection with the suspect purchase and sale of the property in Dromolaxia along with Cyprus Intelligence Services (KYP) officer Costas Miamiliotis, 53, and 40-year-old police sergeant Lefteris Mouskos.
The three men are facing charges at Larnaca Criminal Court relating to conspiracy to commit a crime, fraud, bribery and corruption.
“I call on them [the police] to investigate all of my accounts to see if I have moved funds out of Cyprus”, Kittis told tothemaonline yesterday. “I have nothing to fear. It is his [Lillis] word against mine. The truth will come out.”
The interview took place shortly before police arrested Kittis. Pictures yesterday emerged of Kittis being led away by two plain-clothes officers at CyTA headquarters in Nicosia. The officers were also carrying boxes and files.
Kittis, who was handed the top job at CyTA by former president Demetris Christofias a few years ago, having previously held the post of Diko Deputy Chairman, had gone on to say that Lillis had given a statement to investigators on Monday night implicating him in the scandal.
Lillis has claimed that he paid Kittis €300,000 in cash to push the purchase of the land by the CyTA Pension Fund, something which Kittis denounced as “a lie”.
Kittis’ legal representative, George Papaioannou, yesterday told 24h.com.cy that he was set to arrive back in Cyprus last night from Amsterdam and that he had yet to speak to his client.
An investigative committee was appointed in June to probe allegations after businessman Charalambos Liotatis turned whistleblower on the scandal.
During the subsequent investigation that followed, police discovered two cheques made out to Miamiliotis (€40,000) and Mouskos (€10,000).
A report by KYP, which facilitated the sale of the property in the government controlled areas during the Christofias administration, was also brought into question.
The report originally stated that Turkish Cypriot property owner Mustafa Mustafa had never worked in the free areas, however, this mysteriously changed in the later draft stating that he had in fact worked and lived in the free areas for a period of over six months, which legally entitled him to sell his property.
The court yesterday heard how the property was bought from Mustafa by a company owned by Lillis in 2010 for €1.27m and was sold the following year to the CyTA Pension Fund for €9.9m of which around a further €20m worth of investment was to be spent on building four office buildings called ‘Aero’ to house office workers for Larnaca international airport.

Cyprus Weekly

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