Navy commander was a ‘lamb to the slaughter’ family’s lawyers say

LAWYERS of the family of Captain Andreas Ioannides, the navy commander who died in the Mari blast, had strong words against the ‘leaked police report’ handed over to the Attorney-general. 

The report allegedly says that Ioannides and naval base commander Lambros Lambrou knew of the existence and content of the containers. 

However, they “took no preventative measures to avoid the explosion and evacuate the naval base during the fire, but on the contrary, Ioannides asked to recall staff,” the report allegedly says. 

Ioannides had only been informed that the cargo’s contents were of the “highest national importance,” Ioannides’ lawyers, Demetris Araouzos and Anastasios Antoniou said in a written statement.

The blast’s victims “heroically fell in the line of duty under deception, trying to put out what they knew and understood to be simply a fire,” the statement said. 

Ioannides was never given any orders to evacuate the base nor was he given to understand how dangerous the situation was, the lawyers said. 

They said that independent investigator Polys Polyviou’s report which “studied the same investigative material” as the police showed “in a completely clear and substantiated way” that Captain Ioannides had no responsibility for the blast.

“We condemn with abhorrence the police report,” the lawyers said. 

The lawyers said that Ioannides had “been excluded from the beginning from all meetings and from any real and substantial information that dealt with these issues.” 

 “We really wonder how it would have been possible for Captain Ioannides to take any preventative measures to avoid the blast when in July 4 with the deformation of a container, the Defence Minister (Costas Papacostas) had recommended an experts committee…excluding Ioannides from its meetings and from all substantial updates of goings-on until the blast, of which he was a victim,” it concluded.

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