EIGHT police officers involved in the beating of two students over five years ago were given suspended jail sentences by the Nicosia Criminal Court yesterday.
The eight, including one female police officer, received sentences ranging from two months to one year, depending on the degree of their involvement in the December 20, 2005 incident, which the court suspended for three years.
Seven of the defendants pleaded guilty to assault and causing actual bodily harm and the policewoman to deliberately failing to stop her colleagues from carrying out the offences.
The officers are currently under suspension and receiving part of their pay, while a police disciplinary committee is looking into the case.
The proceedings of the committee had been interrupted pending the court decision.
The incident dominated headlines after a 43-minute amateur video recording, leaked to Politis newspaper, showed the students being repeatedly beaten as they lay handcuffed on the ground, by five plainclothes officers, including four MMAD (Mobile Rapid Reaction Unit) officers and one female constable, after they were pulled over for a routine ID check on Armenia Street in Nicosia.
At the police officers’ original trial which ended in March 2009, the three-judge Nicosia Criminal Court acquitted the defendants, prompting a furious Attorney-general to file an immediate appeal.
The acquittal sparked widespread condemnation, with demonstrations outside the Nicosia courts. Outraged members of the public formed a protest group called Alert and held a series of noisy demonstrations where they placed bananas on the doorstep of the main criminal court building in Nicosia, in reference to a Banana Republic. They also help up banners that read “Disgrace” and “This country deserves better.”
At the time Dr Yiannis Papageorgiou, father to one of the students, commented that “if we are no longer allowed to believe our eyes then I fear that justice has committed suicide,” referring to the court’s reasoning that the footage provided of the beatings could not be proved to be genuine.
One year later, the Supreme Court ordered the case to be re-tried by the court but with different judges.
In considering the defence’s request to suspend the sentence, the court said “first and foremost we weighed the fact that over half a decade has passed since the offences were committed and as a result the family and personal conditions of the defendants have significantly changed in the meantime.”
The Court decision said it also took into consideration the defendants’ “flawless previous life, their clean professional record and their (wrong) belief that by doing what they were accused of they genuinely contributed to maintaining public order.”
The Court also said it took into account the defendants’ punishment due to the publicity of the incident and the serious impact their immediate incarceration would have on their professional career.
