THE Defence Minister yesterday once again played down the importance of military documents found dumped in a Larnaca landfill, though he admitted it was wrong to dispose of government papers in such a manner.
The discovery of the National Guard documents comes after a scandal last summer when highly sensitive Cabinet documents were found in bin liners under a Health Ministry staircase.
At the time, the government had blamed the previous administration, but despite its pledge to set up a mechanism to avoid similar blunders in the future it found itself in the embarrassing position this weekend to order a fresh investigation into the new find.
The documents were found on Friday by a tow-truck driver in the Tersefanou landfill.
They contained details of building specifications for bunkers, machine-gun nests and anti-tank weapon launch sites.
According to the Defence Ministry, the documents, which were promptly seized by military intelligence officers, did not specify the areas where the installations were located.
The ministry said the documents had come from the Communications Ministry, which collaborates with the military on such issues.
Yesterday, Defence Minister Koullis Mavronicolas again insisted that the documents referring to National Guard positions were not classified, and assured that measures taken by his ministry to protect sensitive information were more than enough.
He suggested, however, that the handling of the specific documents had been unfortunate.
“The classified or unclassified documents sent to other ministries should be handled in the relevant manner immediately after their use,” Mavronicolas said.
“It was wrong that these documents were dumped in the landfill,” he added.
The minister said he was sure the investigation would find faults, but said responsibility should be assigned in relation to the degree of the mistake.
Mavronicolas said the European Union had listed Cyprus on level one, capable of handling European Union documents of any classification.
“Thus our mechanisms are absolutely satisfactory.”
But, he added, despite the mistakes, “we are always there to judge those mistakes and impose the relevant penalties”.
