NEGOTIATIONS with a weapons manufacturer have been suspended while the military investigates allegations of kickbacks to military officers, Defence Minister Koullis Mavronicolas has said.
Mavronicolas called a news conference yesterday to respond to latest reports claiming to have fresh information about officers making money under the table for a prospective arms deal with a foreign company.
The weapons system in question is believed to be self-propelled artillery made by a foreign state-owned corporation.
The story first broke late last year when Politis said a National Guard officer was to receive a commission of $1 million in two instalments. The first one, worth $500,000, was deposited in his brother’s business account. The second instalment was to be deposited after the weapons manufacturer had sealed the deal with the government.
However, the officer had been placed under surveillance by undercover agents monitoring his every move while on a trip to Athens to meet with representatives of the company. According to the same press reports, the man’s phone was also tapped.
Because of these unorthodox methods – which are forbidden under the Cyprus Constitution – it was unclear how far the probe could go. Under these conditions, it would be difficult for such evidence to stand in court.
This also had the side-effect of the government denying any knowledge of the alleged scandal. At the time Politis had reported that it was President Papadopoulos himself who appointed the surveillance team and that he was kept informed about the case.
But when the affair first surfaced, Papadopoulos said that “no such issue exists” and that he would not comment on the “fabrications” of one newspaper.
Yesterday Politis ran a story saying that two inquiries were running in parallel – a criminal investigation under the Attorney-general’s office, and a disciplinary probe within the military under the supervision of National Guard chief Lieutenant-General Constantinos Bisbikas.
Citing its sources, the paper said that the deal – worth some £47.3 million – with the arms manufacturer was initialled last October. The officer under suspicion had allegedly travelled to Athens incognito to meet with a Greek middleman. The man, who belonged to the military’s arms procurements division, did not inform his department of the trip, and it seems this is what led to his shadowing.
And in an element reminiscent of a spy thriller, apparently Cypriot authorities have in their possession a photo of the two men together taken from a mobile phone.
In the meantime, the Defence Ministry has reportedly found discrepancies in the invoices for the weapons systems ordered. By comparing invoices of different dates, investigators saw that the initial prices quoted by the manufacturers were grossly inflated later on, most likely to obscure the alleged fat commission.
Politis went a step further yesterday, saying that for political reasons the government kept the official negotiations with the foreign company under wraps; according to reports, the arms in question were to replace US-made weapons. But it seems that somewhere down the line some of the members of the top-secret negotiating team were making plans of their own.
Defence Ministry spokesman Yiannos Patsalides told the Mail yesterday that no agreement – preliminary or otherwise – had been closed with the manufacturers, which he was reluctant to name.
“It wouldn’t be proper to go into details while the investigation is ongoing,” he said.
Opposition DISY, which last year interpreted the government’s initial nonchalant reaction as a cover-up, yesterday toned down its criticism.
Deputy Antonis Karras told the Mail his party “would wait and see” in the hopes that the probes would weed out the guilty parties.
“If there is truth to the allegations, then our question is: ‘is anyone accountable?’ Failure to punish would only foster a sense of unaccountability in the army.
“The fact that in the meantime the suspected officer has been promoted from lieutenant-colonel to brigadier and moved to a different department [from procurements] is not very encouraging at all,” said Karras.
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