By Charlie Charalambous
THREE drug cases, involving seven British tourists, were cancelled by a Larnaca court yesterday because of a prosecution bungle.
A Larnaca judge refused to convene the court to hear the drugs cases – which are usually treated as high priority by judges – because the prosecutions office did not submit the charge sheets early enough for his consideration.
When urged to push forward with proceedings, the judge stormed out of court, claiming the prosecution had not done its job properly, and went home leaving police officers in a quandary over what to do next.
Five British tourists, all from Hackney, east London, were due in court to be officially charged with drug trafficking in order to enter a plea.
Warehouse manager Geoffrey Girling, 26, pub owner Martin Parish, 25, printer Paul Cunningham, 24, student Joseph Xenophontos, 23, and florist Jonathan Wisbey, 23, are all suspected of importing, using and supplying drugs.
They were arrested last week after police found a cocktail drugs — cocaine (12 grammes), ecstasy (13 tablets) and cannabis (16 grammes) — in their Ayia Napa hotel room.
Their lawyer, Andreas Mathikolonis, said the five would have to be released at midnight because their remand order would expire.
“The police will have to let them go tonight and ask them to turn up in court voluntarily tomorrow morning,” the lawyer said.
He added: “it seems the prosecution were under pressure due to the holiday period and didn’t have time to process the charge sheets.”
Two other Britons also had their drug cases put back because of the prosecution’s failure to inform the court on time.
British tourist Colin Rich, 20, from Manchester, was to face charges of receiving five grammes of cannabis in the post and James Robb, 20, from Stoke, faced a stiff fine for possessing a very small amount of cannabis.
After making the British suspects wait around in handcuffs for nearly four hours this morning, red-faced prosecutors conceded defeat, ushering them all back into police vehicles hoping tomorrow would be their lucky day.
However, police prosecutors did manage to get their paperwork ready to secure a three-day remand order for two tourists from Nottingham.
Dean David Smith and Christopher Moss, both 24, were arrested after police found a small amount of hashish in their hotel apartment.
“We are very sorry, we didn’t want any of this to happen, we were just trying to have a nice holiday,” Moss, a computer operator, told the court.
Every year, scores of British tourists leave the island with a ruined holiday and a criminal record, with many going on to lose their jobs because they were unaware of the fact that possession of relatively small quantities of drugs is considered a very serious offence in Cyprus.
