Police freeze former CyTA chairman’s bank account

Authorities have secured a court order to freeze a bank account in Britain belonging to former state telecoms company chairman Stathis Kittis, implicated in a suspicious land deal involving the organisation’s pension fund.

Daily newspaper Alithia and the Cyprus News Agency reported that authorities have secured an injunction freezing some €300,000 belonging to the embattled former CyTA chairman.

Kittis had been arrested and detained for 10 days in September as police investigated allegations that he had received hundreds of thousands in kickbacks in a land deal in Larnaca involving CyTA’s pension fund.

The fund, whose management committee was headed by Kittis, bought office space in Dromolaxia allegedly at greatly inflated prices.

Claims have since surfaced over millions of euros being paid in kickbacks to various individuals.

In addition to Kittis, also implicated in the land deal case, are two members of former ruling party AKEL’s secretariat, a businessman, a union rep, another CyTA senior official and his brother, a land registry official.

Two police officers and another businessman have already been charged for the same case.

The officers allegedly produced a false report saying the Turkish Cypriot seller of the property had lived in the government-controlled areas for six months – a necessary condition — prior to selling the land.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.