By Martin Hellicar
THE COURT clerk didn’t even manage to stay awake. It was a “slow” day at the Hambis Aeroporos murder hearing yesterday, as the three-judge bench heard further arguments in the high-profile case’s fourth side trial.
State prosecutor Petros Clerides cited a wealth of case histories in an effort to convince the Nicosia criminal court that numbers stored in a mobile phone were admissible evidence. The device was found in a car abandoned at the scene of the December 16 Limassol killing by the three hit- men.
Clerides’s reply to a defence objection to the phone evidence was both lengthy and highly legalistic — and it was all a bit much for the court clerk. He repeatedly dozed off in his chair in front of the bench during the prosecutor’s argument.
Clerides wants witness Angelos Tengeris — a mobile phone expert — to turn on the device and read out from its memory the numbers of the phones used to contact the device in the hours before the gangland hit. Clerides is trying to prove there was communication between some of the five accused in the hours before the murder.
George Georgiou, for the defence, argues that the information stored in the phone is protected by privacy laws. He also says the prosecution have failed to show that the phone had been used systematically or was in proper working order at the crucial time.
Anything Tengeris read from the screen of the mobile phone would be hearsay, and thus unacceptable as evidence, the defence lawyer adds.
Georgiou is defending hospital cleaner Zoe Alexandrou, who, along with her brother — Limassol cabaret owner Sotiris Athinis, 43 — is charged with conspiring to kill Hambis. Alexandrou, 51, has admitted the phone found at the scene of the crime is hers, but both she and her brother deny the conspiracy charges.
Clerides’ counter-argument yesterday was that privacy laws did not apply to situations where any form of confidential communication was “abandoned” to public view. From the moment the phone was left in the car at the murder scene it was no longer covered by privacy laws, he put it to the judges.
“Is it logical for a person who leaves a mobile phone at the scene of a crime to expect that the contents of its memory will not be read out in court?” Clerides proposed.
He reminded the court that he had produced expert witnesses to state that both the phone and the phone system had been in good working order last December.
Clerides said information stored in the phone’s memory bank was not, by law, defined as hearsay evidence if reproduced before a court.
The defence has thrice previously challenged the admissibility of prosecution evidence, forcing a “trial-within-a-trial” each time. The court overruled the defence objections every time, but the delays to trial progress had a part to play in the surprise confession of one of the accused hit-men, waiter Prokopis Prokopiou, 35.
A few weeks into the trial, Prokopiou stood up to tell the court that he was tired of the long-drawn out procedure, and wanted to admit that he had pulled the trigger on 36-year-old Hambis. He also said the two policemen on trial alongside him were innocent.
Policeman Christos Symianos, 35, and special constable Savvas Ioannou, alias Kinezos, 33, have pleaded not guilty to murdering Aeroporos. Prokopiou, who suffers from chronic kidney failure, is to be sentenced at a later date.
The trial, which has been on-going for three months now, continues.
Three hooded hit-men gunned Hambis down in broad daylight as he drove home from the Limassol hospital where he was receiving routine treatment for wounds suffered during an earlier suspected gangland hit, in June 1995.
Hambis’s murder is thought to be part of an ongoing turf war between rival underworld gangs vying for control of the cabaret circuit — a suspected front for gambling, prostitution and drugs rackets.
The bloody feud shows no sign of letting up. Twelve days ago, trial suspect Athinis, who is free on bail, was lucky to survive an anti-tank missile attack outside his Limassol cabaret. Four men are being held in connection with the attack.
Hambis’ younger brother, Andros, 32, was gunned down outside Limassol’s Show Palace cabaret in July 1998.
Just eight weeks earlier, Aeroporos brothers Hambis, Andros and Panicos, 26, had been acquitted of the May 1997 attempted murder of Larnaca gambling club owner Antonis Fanieros.
The Hambis murder trial was moved to Nicosia for fear of reprisals against the suspects. Armed police are out in force for every hearing.
