HELIOS AIRWAYS, in cooperation with the civil aviation department, is purposefully using legal avenues to delay the investigation into last August’s crash and cloud over the exact events, the victims’ relatives said yesterday.
The opinion was voiced following Wednesday’s decision by the Cypriot one-member investigative committee, headed by Panayiotis Kallis, to postpone proceedings yet again.
The reason was the airline’s lawyers’ proclamation that they couldn’t proceed with questioning witnesses without possessing the final report, conducted by the Greek Investigative Team into Air Accidents, headed by Akrivos Tsolakis.
Communications and Works Minister Harris Thrassou also commented on the decision yesterday, stressing the need for catharsis following the crash, which occurred just outside Athens and killed all 121 passengers and crew members on board.
“A drama has occurred in Cyprus and now there is an urgent need for catharsis,” said the minister. “All the parties involved must help, so that this catharsis can take place as soon as possible,” he added.
Thrassou went on to condemn those who were creating obstacles in the investigation’s proceedings. “All they are achieving is that they are distressing the victims’ relatives, the Civil Aviation and the public opinion in general”.
He promised that the Ministry would do anything it could to help in the investigation and said he hoped the same cooperativeness would be shown by the rest of the parties involved.
“Everyone’s efforts should be centred on the swift elucidation of the matter. The responsibilities should be appointed where they exist and more importantly, there is a need for introspection so we can achieve a state-worthy mechanism that will no longer expose Cyprus abroad,” said Thrassou.
“The matter of restructuring is under great evolution”, he added.
Spokesman for the Relatives of the Helios Crash Victims Committee, Nicolas Yiasoumis, repeated yesterday that the relatives were deeply concerned with the way things are going.
He spoke of deterioration within the proceedings and said there was a mutual covering up of issues by the Civil Aviation Department and Helios.
“Just when you think that things are moving in the right direction, some start making an account of their mistakes and omissions,” said Yiasoumis yesterday.
“Suddenly a barrier has been put up through legal means, which is marring the proceedings at a critical point in the investigation.”
Yiasoumis questioned how the airline could be making comments on the affair – seeing that it received the preliminary report on May 18 – and yet its lawyers couldn’t use it to question witnesses.
“We are observing these attempts to cloud the waters, to cloud the scene, and this concerns us,” said the spokesman for the relatives. “From the moment that the [Cypriot one-member investigative] committee was appointed on the instruction of the President of the Republic, all these possibilities and obstacles should have been predicted and resolved.”
The sense of justice felt by the public when the investigative committee was appointed, has now been destroyed said Yiasoumis.
“In the one week that the committee has been operating, we have seen two postponements, via legalistic approaches and obstacles. And we wouldn’t be at all surprised if even more legal problems push proceedings further back.”
Concluding, Yiasoumis accused the parties involved of trying to convince the public that everything was running smoothly in the investigation’s proceedings.
“We are trying to convey a positive fa?ade on the outside when on the inside there is serious decay.”
Loizos Papacharalambous, the lawyer representing the victims and relatives, said there was no margin for objections.
He mentioned that Helios was in possession of the preliminary report and said as far as he was concerned there was no substantial reason for an issue to be created as at this stage in the proceedings, as the company’s lawyers only needed to submit specifying questions.
”It is a decision that was made by the committee,” said Papacharalambous of Kallis’ decision to postpone the investigation.
“I would not like to comment on whether it was right or wrong, it is respected.
“On the other hand, I believe that the specific document the Helios lawyers were referring to (when they said they could not proceed with questioning), was in their possession, as it was part of the [preliminary] Tsolakis report.”
Therefore, it was very unlikely for there to be any substantial reason why the Helios lawyers couldn’t ask questions of a specifying nature, said Papacharalambous.
“Though at this stage in the procedure, I believe that cross-examining questions are not allowed,” he added.
“I think it is a matter of tactics and that the Helios lawyers wanted to set a frame within which they want to move.”
But he stressed that there was no room for objections. “All we can do is hope proceedings begin immediately on August 18, so that we can see an end to this matter.”
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