Army and police officers are accused in the private criminal case by the family of conscript Thanasis Nicolaou following Attorney General George Savvides’ decision to close the investigation of his death in 2005.
Phileleftheros daily said the family blamed National Guard and police officers who had arrived at the scene and allegedly botched initial investigations.
It said that eight, or more, officers would be included in the prosecution.
The charge sheet will include people the family believes failed to carry out their duty in investigating their son’s death, not for causing it.
The family were initially told their son had committed suicide, but the Attorney-General dropped the case, despite evidence showing he had been murdered.
Savvides told the family he could not press charges against people allegedly involved in the murder as no evidence against them had emerged.
The family and their legal advisor, Christos Triantafyllides, decided to file a private criminal prosecution against people who botched investigations due to negligence.
Triantafyllides initially said the family intends to open legal proceedings “against those tasked with investigating the guardsman’s death, three officers serving at Limassol police headquarters at the time of his death”.
State pathologist Panicos Stavrianos who conducted the autopsy, also faces prosecution for allegedly failing to spot crucial evidence pointing to murder.
Triantafyllides had said that everyone included in the prosecution was named in the probe commissioned by the Legal Services conducted by investigators Savvas Matsas and Antonis Alexopoulos.
However, they did not name army officers for misconduct.
Triantafyllides said: “The indictment does not go against people responsible for his death, but those who could have helped solve the case”.
Results from the autopsy are inconsistent with the fall of Thanasis from the bridge, under which he had been found, as stated in the Matsa-Alexopoulos opinion.
Evidence missed by medical examiners proving that Thanasis had been murdered will also be presented.
Drug ring
The case of Thanasis Nicolaou’s death was reopened 16 years after his mother, Andriana Nicolaou, had relentlessly insisted that her son had not committed suicide but was murdered after stumbling on a drug ring in his army camp.
She said at a recent demo officials covered up the murder of her son “to protect the drug dealers that my unfortunate child happened to see trafficking drugs in the army camp.
“They closed his mouth, so he did not speak, only because he refused to join them.”
“That is why his army commander had come to visit us the next day of his death, asking us if he had told us anything the last night he had been home.
“He wanted to know if our son had the opportunity to tell us what happened! Army officers killed my child, and you (state officials) killed his family!” wrote Andriana.
The soldier’s body was found under a bridge in Alassa, Limassol, in September 2005, about 12 kilometres from his home and barracks.
Authorities were convinced that Nicolaou had committed suicide, but police had not questioned all his fellow army comrades, despite the victim reporting being bullied.
In February 2021, the ECHR ruled that authorities had botched the investigation into his death.
On Wednesday, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Legal Services in Nicosia to express their dissatisfaction with the Attorney General’s decision not to pursue criminal charges.
The timing of the protest held significance as it coincided with the anniversary of Thanasis’ enlistment in the National Guard in 2005.
