SO THE COPS, allegedly caught on video giving a good kicking to a couple of youths in December 2005, were innocent according to our criminal court? The video was not valid evidence, decided the learned judges in their decision, acquitting the 10 cops who were charged with assaulting the two students.
Without the video evidence it was the word of the 10 nice cops against the word of the two horrible, long-haired students. I know who I would believe, but then I would not claim to possess the wisdom of a judge. There is no doubt the judges have the wisdom, which is probably why they do not bother using common sense.
The authenticity of the footage had not been proved beyond reasonable doubt, the court ruled. This could only have been done if the person who filmed the imaginary beatings appeared in court to give testimony.
But what was he afraid of? He would not be giving incriminating evidence against an underworld gangster, a human trafficker or a psycho, drug baron who might send one of his heavies to pay the witness a home visit. He would be testifying against officers of the law, who would never dream of intimidating a witness, let alone exacting revenge once he had given his testimony in court.
Then again, the man saw the cops in action. If they could behave so violently for a laugh, against two kids who had done nothing wrong, what would they do to someone whose testimony would have caused them to lose their jobs?
You really can’t blame him for refusing to have anything to do with the trial – testifying would be tantamount to signing a contract for continuous police harassment for the rest of his life.
IN FAIRNESS, we cannot blame the judges if the key witness, who could have tipped the case against the suspects, was too scared of the cops to testify. Then again, if the judges used their common sense instead of their wisdom they would have understood why he was so scared.
Had they used their common sense they may have been less inclined to believe the testimony of the cops. They would have taken into account that five of the 10 suspects, immediately after the imaginary beatings, had initiated criminal charges against the two youths accusing them of assaulting police officers. Could the court take these guys seriously?
The Attorney-general dropped the charges when the video was released, several months after the incident, and charged the cops instead. Perhaps now that the video evidence has been discredited by the court, the Attorney-general should consider pressing criminal charges against the two youths for assaulting the five cops. They cannot be let off because of a fake video.
The public needs to see justice being done. You cannot leave people with doubts in their mind about the rule of law in Kyproulla.
ATTORNEY-GENERAL Petros Clerides made a complete fool of himself with his hysterically emotional reaction to the decision. His storming into the court-room, while Judge Yiasemi was reading the decision, demanding that he stop and accept a question from the AG was straight out of a Hollywood movie.
Had the guy lost his marbles and thought he was Charles Laughton in Witness for the Prosecution? Did he seriously expect the judge to say: “Yes Mr AG, pose your question, and if it is legally pertinent we would be more than happy to go and re-write our 158-page decision.” His office’s lawyers had failed to prove the guilt of the cops in the trial and he was going to do it with a single question?
Much as I hate to agree with the Supreme Court, which has come up with more than a few ludicrous decisions over the years, it was absolutely right in urging the hot-headed Clerides to control himself. The guy had gone berserk, going on television on the day of the decision and expressing views about the justice system, the police and the state you’d expect to hear from some unwashed, long-haired anarchist or from his crazy assistant Akis Papasavvas; certainly not from the Attorney-general.
He claimed he had a right to show disrespect for the courts, after his disdainful treatment by the judges and said the acquittal “constituted encouragement of state terrorism”. He also had a go at the cops who covered up cases, and the blundering judges, but his best line was that we should not always trust the justice system.
The only option left for a self-respecting AG, who had completely lost his faith in the justice system, believed the courts encouraged state terrorism and felt that he had been publicly humiliated by three judges, is to submit his resignation and go home. But it appears on this matter he decided to exercise ‘self-control’. He is not that mad that he would give up the generous salary and benefits he is paid by this rotten system.
THE POSSIBILITY that his office has messed up the case obviously did not cross Clerides’ mind. It would not have been the first or the second time that the AG’s office had failed to get a conviction on what had appeared an open and shut case. In fact the only cases his office seems to win are those in which defendant has confessed.
As for the courts, some of the decisions they have come up with are plainly bizarre. In the cops’ case, the judges devoted loads of pages slamming the media for declaring the defendants guilty before the trial had even begun. Surely the papers and the TV stations, which had been in contempt of court should have been charged and the judges thrown the case out because the publicity would have prevented a fair trial.
Instead the judges held the trial and blamed the media, in their decision, for influencing the outcome, which was a bit of a cop-out.
CONSPIRACY theorists would certainly have made the connection between the lead story on Mega TV’s evening news on Tuesday night and the cops’ case.
The station reported that a senior official at the Legal Services Department who had been booked by a cop for speaking on his mobile while driving, had contacted high-ranking officers and arranged for his fine to be cancelled.
The news presenter Victoras Papadopoulos was mortified, engaging in moralistic tirade about equality before the law and the arrogance of state officials. The reporter covering the story informed us that the official had verbally abused the cop, giving him the ‘do you know who I am’ spiel and telling him he would report him.
Victoras had the police spokesman on the phone, to give the police version of the event and gave him a two-minute sermon before allowing him to speak. When he was allowed to talk the spokesman, said that the cop had made a mistake as the official was parked in a private field, talking on his mobile, and should not have been fined. This was why the fine was cancelled.
Of course, the presenter did not believe him, insisting that this was a classic case of the police favouring a big-shot official, while expecting poor wage-earners to pay their fines in full. The spokesman said this was an unfair charge as “the police often show a human face and just give offenders warnings”. Some 11,000 warnings had been given to drivers he said – the humanity of our Presidente has obviously rubbed off on our cops.
Victoras was not having any of this. The official should still have been fined for speaking rudely to the cop he declared, before saying: “People have had favourable treatment from the police, including me, but I was very polite to the policeman, when I was stopped.”
What a surprise. And we would have thought that Victoras would have given the cop a sermon about only the poor wage-earners having to pay fines for traffic violations, while TV presenters were let off.
I HAVE not forgotten the conspiracy. The following night, Mega carried on its moralising about the cancelled fine, provoking the official, who had not been named by the station to come on air and give his version of the story. The official was Savvas Mats
as, the state prosecutor in the case of the police beatings.
One conspiracy theory was that the cops had been tailing Matsas and waiting for him to commit a traffic offence so he could be fined. The second theory, however, is more plausible. When cops at police HQ realised that the man prosecuting their colleagues had made a fuss about his fine and had it annulled, they gave the story to Mega in order to embarrass him.
How else would Mega have gotten hold of the original parking ticket, which it showed on the TV, if it had not been given to the station by the cops? This was the first time ever that any medium had gotten hold of cancelled traffic violation fine, involving a state official. But I doubt Matsas was the first state official who had been done a favour by the cops.
If the cops had no scruples about going after the prosecutor in the beatings trial, what would they have done to the key witness if he had dared to testify? Not even if he was as polite as Victoras, would they have forgiven him.
REPORTS from the US that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would be meeting Mehmet Ali Talat, did not go down very well in Nicosia, with the bash-patriots collectively beating their breasts over the latest illustration of pro-Turkish bias by the new US administration.
Of course, it was not all doom and gloom according to the CyBC’s Washington correspondent Apostolos Zoubaniotis. He reported that that the State Department might think twice after seeing the angry reaction of the journalists, during the press briefing at which the subject was raised. With such journalists (don’t forget our friend Michalis Ignatiou the book author), fighting for our cause in Washington, we should close down our embassy.
Sadly, despite the valiant efforts of our hacks, the meeting will still take place. Not even the Greek lobby in the US could block the meeting as Zoubaniotis had forecasted.
DIKO chief Marios Garoyian was at pains this week to assure everyone that the election of three Cyprob hawks to his party’s top posts would not restrict his leadership in any way. Most observers have claimed that he would be the hostage of the hawks and be forced to take a harder line on the Cyprob.
These guys obviously do not know Marios very well. Describing him as a hostage implies that he would be changing his stance against his will, but nothing could be further from the truth. Marios would voluntarily do whatever is necessary to remain the party leader and increasing his patriotism by a few levels for the sake of the hawks is hardly a big price to pay.
SPEAKING of DIKO, I like the melodramatic tone taken by the party spokesman Fotis Fotiou, regarding the European elections. He said on a radio show that these would be the first elections DIKO would be taking part in without either of its unforgettable leaders. He had a point. DIKO would be fighting its first elections as an orphan.
Fotiou may have stumbled upon a winner. If the orphan card is played in the election campaign the party will win thousands of sympathy votes.
Garoyian is no patriarch. He has the role of benevolent uncle, looking after the orphaned party until one of the children of the unforgettable leaders can take over the family business.
NOT ALL our cops are violent, lying, scheming beasts that nobody could trust. That is why we thought we should finish with a truly heart-warming story about a senior officer which proves that there are still some caring human beings in the force. On Friday, the officer was touring Nicosia in a police patrol car distributing invitations to his daughter’s wedding. Some cops are capable of doing productive things when they are on duty.
