TWO MEN, an Education Ministry official and a sales manager of a private information technology company, were in court yesterday on corruption charges.
Education Ministry Systems Administrator Lefkios Doratos and Sales and Marketing Manager Iosif Kakoullis were both arrested last Monday after police officials discovered that the two men were conspiring together to have a tender deal pushed in favour of the company that Kakoullis was working for.
The Ministry of Education had announced a competition in September 2005 in which a tender was sought for 2,000 colour printers could be bought, installed and maintained in various schools around the island. The deal was worth £1million.
Doratos, who has four charges against him including abuse of power and revealing confidential information to unauthorised individuals, confessed to his involvement in the crime. According to police, Kakoullis confessed verbally to conspiring with Doratos but that they were not able to finish off a written statement because they had run out of time.
Kakoullis has five charges against him, including attempting to illegally obtain confidential information and concealment.
Constable Modestos Poyiatzis of Nicosia CID explained to the court how the swindle was brought to light.
“During December 2005, the managing director of a company taking part in a tender competition, found a printed email on his desk from the first accused to the second accused dated December 7, 2005 and under the title ‘Printers’.
The court heard how the email clearly revealed the problems with the printers being put forward from other companies and, in particular, the problems with the printers from the managing director’s own company.
“The email from the first accused goes on to say that he believes that the only ‘threat’ appears to be from a specific other company. He also highlights the problems with the specific printer and even gives him links on the internet in which these problems are mentioned thus eliminating the competition.
“The first accused also requests more information on other competitors so as to find weaknesses in the printers that they will be offering in their proposals to the Ministry.”
A search warrant was issued from the Nicosia court and CID were granted access to CyTA’s (Cyprus Telecommunications Authority) electronic mail network to ten emails that Doratis, who has email account with Cytanet, had received from Kakoullis.
A careful examination of the emails revealed that the two men had been in frequent contact with each other via email from October 17, 2005 exchanging confidential information regarding the tender seeking of the Ministry.
The email account of Kakoullis could not be accessed because the company he worked for had their own email server, according to Poyiatzis.
“Arrest warrants were issued to both men and executed by the police and Nicosia and Limassol CID on February 6. Upon the arrest of the first accused at his office of employment he told us ‘I have nothing to say guys’.
“Upon arresting the second accused at the Ministry of Education he told us: ‘I want to speak to my lawyer’. We seized a number of computer equipment from both men including hard disks, floppy disks, computers, CDs and a memory stick.”
Both men were taken to Nicosia CID where Doratis made a voluntary confession to the crime saying “that he did it in the best interest of the state”.
“He added that he did not get any money for his action nor was trying to simply favour the specific company involved in the scandal”, said Poyiatzis.
The constable then requested from the court that both men be held in remand for six days pending the preliminary police investigations that could be jeopardised should the men be released and influence witnesses or destroy any evidence they may have.
“Until now we have accumulated around eight statements whilst we are also expecting to take a further 40 statements from people in Nicosia and Limassol. Further arrests have not been ruled out, while we will also be requesting search warrants to search accounts belonging to the two suspects, at the Cyprus Stock Exchange and their respective banks.”
Meanwhile, Kakoullis’ defence lawyer George Papaioannou questioned Poyiatzis over the exact charges leading up to the arrest of his client and Doratos.
“I find it very surprising how the police could move in and arrest the two men after just one witness account. A crime not even been committed, no money has been given to anyone so how can you be requesting a six-day remand.”
Papaioannou also claimed that some of the charges against both men had been thrown out. He also accused Poyiatzis of contradicting himself during his questioning in court.
Judge Nicos Yiapanas summed up the proceeding by saying that he would give his answer this morning as to whether or not the two suspects would be held in remand or not.
