A FORMER business partner of President Tassos Papadopoulos yesterday denied their firm violated UN sanctions against Yugoslavia in the 1990s by helping Serbian firms get cash out of the country.
It was the first hearing in a libel case brought by Papadopoulos against the Financial Times for reporting in 2002 that his law firm had close ties with companies suspected of siphoning money abroad.
Papadopoulos himself, his law firm, Tassos Papadopoulos & Co, as well as the firm’s partner Nicos Papaesftathiou are suing the Financial Times for £250,000.
Papadopoulos and his aides have consistently denied wrongdoing or knowingly assisting attempts to violate sanctions, imposed to punish Belgrade for its role in the conflicts that accompanied the breakup of former Yugoslavia.
Sanctions-busting is thought to have bankrolled at least two Balkan wars in the 1990s.
“[We] never acted in violation of United Nations sanctions, either in relation to the registering of companies or handling their cases in the fields of our competence,” said Pambos Ioannides, now managing partner of Tassos Papadopoulos & Co.
Papadopoulos is no longer with the firm that bears his name.
Ioannides read a written deposition to a Cyprus court on Monday, saying one of the law firm’s clients, a Cyprus unit of a Serbian bank, Beogradska, did get cash flown in from its main office in Serbia to help it continue its operations after sanctions began.
The Central Bank of Cyprus had verified the cash transfers were legally sound, he said.
“The plaintiffs are not aware that any of their clients, and particularly not Beogradska Banka or the companies they registered, violated any sanctions against Yugoslavia or broke any laws,” Ioannides said. “Nor would they have ever aided or abetted such a violation in any way.”
Ioannides categorically denied the paper’s claims, labeling them as “totally untrue, false and wanton”.
His statement added that he believed the accusations had been spurred by “other interested parties” who sought political gain from discrediting Papadopoulos at the time he was running for President in 2002.
The case continues on May 3.
