THE POLICE Chief yesterday handed over a sizeable report on its criminal investigation into the Mari blast to the Attorney-general, reportedly pointing the finger at ten people deemed criminally responsible.
Police Chief Michalis Papageorgiou and his team delivered 36 files and 1,000 pages comprising a two-volume report.
The police took 1,123 depositions, 510 testimonies and collected 464 separate pieces of evidence.
It is understood that police have recommended the prosecution of ten individuals from all public bodies involved in the events leading up to and after the blast that killed 13 people and destroyed the island’s main power station at Vassilikos.
Attorney-general Petros Clerides said in August that the main offence they were investigating was manslaughter.
“In this report and box files is everything that has happened from the beginning until the end,” Papageorgiou said as he handed over the report.
“It includes what happened on the scene during the explosion, data collecting, all papers wherever they were and a scholastic study of all documents,” Papageorgiou added.
The July 11 blast was the result of the explosion of 98 containers holding munitions which were confiscated in 2009 and were exposed to the weather for over two years.
The police report was delivered only a day after Polys Polyviou released his 600-page plus report and publicly pointed the finger as President Demetris Christofias at a subsequent news conference.
Polyviou attributed the ultimate political and personal culpability for the events to Christofias and to a lesser extent respective former foreign and defence ministers Marcos Kyprianou and Costas Papacostas.
Polyviou also made references to criminal offences and the need to investigate everyone involved “with no exceptions.”
Clerides became impatient at journalists pushing for remarks on Polyviou’s comments.
“I will see Polyviou’s report and if based on his conclusions I judge that the police should take additional evidence, I will take them,” Clerides said.
Clerides repeated more than once that the decision to press criminal charges belonged to him and him alone and he would be the one to choose whether to start criminal proceedings against individuals or not, he said.
Some opposition parties and relatives of the 13 victims of the blast have been calling for Christofias to be prosecuted.
For that to happen, Clerides would have to appeal to the Supreme Court arguing that he committed high treason “or any other dishonourable offence or an offence involving moral turpitude” as stated in article 45 of the Constitution.
