There is a clear attempt to undermine the director of the central prison Anna Aristotelous after she reported police corruption, her lawyer said on Monday.
Pambos Ioannides was speaking following a damning statement from the attorney general’s office last week which referred to the management of the Nicosia central prisons as inadequate and ineffective.
The lawyer did not comment on the AG report findings but claimed it was an effort to fragment the directorate of the department. He implied there have been unreasonable delays into the investigation of a complaint filed by the prison director and senior unit officer Athina Demetriou.
The complaint, launched two and a half months ago, concerned corruption allegations made against a senior police officer, who, according to Aristotelous, was colluding with an inmate to secure damaging material of Aristotelous to oust her from the position.
Citing media information, the lawyer said the investigation appears to conclude that the specific officer is criminally liable, as well as two more people.
However, a second investigation was also launched right after Aristotelous’ complaint after the courts found that an inmate, serving life for murder, was the ringleader of two attempted murder attacks, having used a mobile phone while in prison to organise crime.
The facility is rife with drugs and criminal activity, Attorney-general George Savvides and Deputy Attorney-general Savvas Angelides said on Friday commenting on the findings of the second investigation.
They also said there is witness intimidation both inside and outside the prison, leading to an “uncontrolled and extremely dangerous situation”.
The AG’s office cited five incidents that connected back to illegal activities within the prisons and called on the management of the prisons to take “drastic and immediate measures”.
In response, the director said this was another attempt to “eat us alive” after they reported an act of corruption involving a senior officer.
“The effort to eat us alive is evident by nullifying and levelling all the work we have done in the prisons for the last eight years, which are admittedly among the best prisons in Europe,” she told Politis.
Recently, Netflix documentary series Inside the World’s Toughest Prisons portrayed Nicosia prisons as a ‘utopia’ where it is easy to forget that it is a maximum security prison.
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