THE ATTORNEY-general yesterday ruled there would be no criminal investigation against DIKO vice-chairman Nicos Pittokopitis and other officials at the Paphos co-op involved in a loans scandal.
“There is no call for a further investigation in the form of a criminal investigation,” Alecos Markides said in a statement released yesterday afternoon.
The Cabinet asked Markides to rule on the issue on Wednesday after a state-appointed committee charged with probing goings-on at the Paphos co-op identified only disciplinary, and not criminal, offences.
The probe committee’s remit was to investigate claims that Pittokopitis, who is chairman of the Paphos co-op, and other top officials at the establishment had vastly exceeded their overdraft allowances at the bank.
Given the probe’s findings, Markides’ ruling comes as no surprise, but will nonetheless be a relief for Pittokopitis, who is running for re-election in next month’s parliamentary polls.
Pittokopitis has always maintained his complete innocence, saying he paid back in full all the money he drew from his co-op. He has also claimed that guidelines on how much cash co-op members can draw from their own establishments are unclear.
He has refused to bow to calls for his resignation.
Though it only found disciplinary offences, the probe did suggest that the actions of the co-op members in question constituted an abuse of trust punishable with sacking.
New Horizons leader Nicos Koutsou yesterday became the latest among Pittokopitis’ political rivals to demand that the DIKO heavyweight call it a day.
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.
