THE NICOSIA Criminal Court will decide on February 15 whether to accept a prosecution request to have several overseas expert witnesses testify via teleconference on the Helios air crash, after parliament urgently passed the legal framework to allow it.
The prosecution’s two separate requests were rejected in November when it emerged that Cyprus didn’t have the legal framework to implement an agreement between the island and the US for mutual judicial assistance, which includes teleconferencing. The court ruled that it couldn’t examine the request unless the relevant law was enforced.
But after parliament passed the law as a matter of urgency in December, the prosecution’s request was re-tabled.
State prosecutors had filed two separate requests: one on September 28 for two US National Transport Safety Board (NTSB) witnesses and another in early November for five witnesses working for Boeing, the manufacturer of the aircraft that crashed in Greece in August 2005, killing all 121 on board.
The Court yesterday re-examined the requests in the presence of Court President Haris Solomonides, Senior District Judge Nicholas Santis and District Judge Nicos Yiapanas. The state prosecution and defence lawyers were also present, as well as the Bulgarian chief pilot of Helios Yianko Stoimenov, who is representing himself.
The Court will re-convene on February 15 to hear both legal teams’ statements and will decide whether to allow for the witnesses to testify via teleconference. If approved, this would be the first time in the Cyprus judicial system’s history that such a measure has been used in a criminal case.
The August 2005 Helios crash, which wiped out entire families and sent shockwaves throughout Cyprus, has been described as one of the biggest tragedies in Cyprus’ modern history.
A technical problem and lack of training for the staff have primarily been blamed for the crash, which saw the Helios plane circle Attica in Athens, before crashing into uninhabited mountains. Andreas Prodromou, an air steward on the flight, received a posthumous bravery award for managing to steer the plane away from the busy Greek capital, even though all other passengers and crew members aboard had passed out due to decompression.
The victims’ relatives and friends have been pushing for justice ever since.
There are five defendants in the case: Helios chairman Andreas Drakos, the company Helios as a legal entity, Helios’ chief advisor Demetris Pantazis, operations manager George Kikkides and Stoimenov, who are all free but with restrictions.
