Sisters convicted of fraud

A NICOSIA criminal court yesterday found lawyer Andri Iracleous, 49, and her sister, chemist Maria Ioannou, 42, guilty of defrauding an elderly man from the Engomi suburb of Nicosia. The defendants were charged with using false assurances in the transfer of a mortgage, accepting to transfer property of a party deemed incapable of handling his/her wealth, and extracting a power of attorney under false pretences.

The plaintiff, 80-year-old Antonis Kei, claimed he was swindled by Iracleous into granting her power of attorney over his £56,000 house in Engomi. For their part, the defendants claimed Kei had willingly signed over his home a few years back, but Kei insisted he did not know what he was signing at the time.

Kei earlier testified in court that Iracleous had swindled him out of the “earnings of 10 years’ of hard work” in Australia, from where he and his now deceased spouse returned in 1993, when they bought the house from Iracleous.

The defendants will be sentenced on Thursday, following defence pleas for mitigation. The court ruled that Iracleous and Ioannou should remain in custody until that time.

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