YKAN officer gets 6 months

A SERGEANT of the Anti-Drug Squad Unit (YKAN) was yesterday sentenced to six months’ jail by the Nicosia Assizes after being found guilty of interfering in a police investigation.

Sergeant Thanasis Athanasiou had been found guilty of warning Andreas Christodoulou, alias Panthiras (Panther), that police and YKAN officers were on their way to his home in Pallouritissa with a search warrant during a sting operation on June 29, 2004. The court heard how Athanasiou had told Christodoulou using his mobile phone: “We are on our way, you know what that means”. Athanasiou was one of the officers in the investigation.

After already being found guilty in the previous trial back in December 20, Judge Angelos David yesterday passed sentence ruling that Athanasiou serve a six-month prison sentence.

Christodoulou had been in the media spotlight in January 2004, after claiming that another YKAN sergeant had tried to kill him during an operation. But a court decision on February 2, 2006, ruled that the YKAN Sergeant had not intended to harm Christodoulou after being charged with two counts of causing grievous bodily harm. Christodoulou also made headlines when Euro MP Marios Matsakis allegedly offered the sergeant accused of shooting Christodoulou, a bribe to change his testimony.

Matsakis had been the forensic pathologist who at the time had examined Christodoulou after the shooting.