DETECTIVES are assessing any information on possible forging of official documents relating to the Mari disaster, the police said yesterday, following media reports that a Foreign Ministry document was tampered with after July 11 in order to let former FM Marcos Kyprianou off the hook.
“Any information and/or clues regarding such an act [of tampering] are being assessed and investigated by the police,” said the force’s spokesman Michalis Katsounotos.
Daily Politis yesterday led with an item claiming that a Foreign Ministry document was altered subsequent to the events of July 11, making it appear as if former FM Kyprianou was in favour of destroying the cargo at the naval base over safety concerns.
According to Politis, police investigators became aware of the alleged forgery after questioning the Foreign Ministry officer who had kept the minutes of a meeting held at the Defence Ministry on February 7 this year to discuss the cargo stored at Mari naval base.
In her first deposition, the FM officer told police she had prepared a summary of the meeting based on her handwritten notes taken on the day. When asked whether she still had the handwritten notes, she said she must have destroyed them.
But in a subsequent deposition the same officer reportedly had a change of heart and produced the handwritten notes.
What’s more, she has reportedly admitted to investigators that after July 11 she was instructed by superiors at the FM to add a paragraph to the classified document.
The paragraph added in later on read: “The Minister of Foreign Affairs asked everyone present to focus on safety issues and for an assessment on the stability of the gunpowder.”
Politis claims also that the FM officer has named the person who instructed her to make the addition.
Police have reportedly seized the officer’s computer and hard disk in order to determine when the original document was drafted and when the additions were made.
Attending the February 7 meeting were former Defence Minister Costas Papacostas and former FM Kyprianou. According to Politis, the FM officer told police that the minutes of the meeting were typed up much later. Although she could not remember when exactly, she guessed around May.
Politis noted that there are glaring discrepancies between the accounts of the February 7 meeting kept by the ministries of Defence and of Foreign Affairs.
In the FM document, Kyprianou is shown as agreeing with a suggestion by the former National Guard chief for a controlled detonation of the containers following consultation with the United Nations:
“The Foreign Minister agreed, noting that the gunpowder was unstable. He also asked that we learn the value of the remaining cargo in the event that it was sold. The money [from such a sale] could be deposited in a bank and have the UN decide the next course of action…”
There follows the paragraph where Kyprianou “asked everyone present to focus on safety issues and for an assessment on the stability of the gunpowder.”
The Defence Ministry record of the meeting tells a different story. These minutes were typed up on February 10, just three days after the meeting. Nowhere does it mention destroying the munitions inside the containers.
According to this account, the National Guard’s commander of the Ordnance Corps voiced concerns over the stability of the munitions and gunpowder, at which point Kyprianou asked whether it would be possible for the contents of the containers to be examined in labs here or abroad to determine whether they were stable.
Kyprianou also noted that it would be useful to have an assessment on the value of the cargo as a whole. Leonidas Pantelides, head of the President’s diplomatic office, then suggested that the cargo be sold and a nominal amount from the proceeds be given to Syria and Iran. Kyprianou disagreed, pointing out that Syria and Iran preferred this option for political reasons – by receiving proceeds from the sale the two countries could argue that the cargo’s confiscation was illegal in the first place.
According to the Defence Ministry minutes, Kyprianou’s final contribution to that meeting was to ask the National Guard General Staff to send samples from the Mari containers to labs here or abroad in order to determine any degradation of the gunpowder.
Meanwhile, detectives assigned to the criminal probe into the Mari disaster yesterday met with the Attorney-general for a progress review. Police are currently poring over the hundreds of depositions taken.
Kyprianou last night told state broadcaster CyBC he wanted to make it clear that “no document has been altered”.
