IT IS HARD to say when the criminal investigation into the Helios crash will be completed, Attorney-general Petros Clerides said yesterday, while reassuring relatives they will have the information from the Kallis report in time to file civil suits in Greek courts.
He explained that the relatives wanted help from the Law Office and the police so that they could proceed with filing lawsuits in Greek courts for compensation for the loss of their loved ones.
Asked why the relatives had turned to Greek courts to file suits, the Attorney General said “it appears that the Greek law gives higher compensations than the Cypriot law.”
It has been almost two years since the police probe was launched, just days after the worst aviation disaster in Cypriot history.
On the morning of August 14, 2005, a Boeing 737 jet bound for Athens lost contact with Larnaca airport shortly after takeoff. It crashed around three hours later on a mountainside in Grammatikos, Greece. Most of the victims were Cypriot families going on holiday.
Nevertheless, the AG said yesterday he was “very satisfied” with the progress of the investigation.
But he hesitated to put even an approximate date on when it would be completed.
Clerides was flanked by police chief Iacovos Papacostas, who said police were doing “everything humanly possible” to finish the inquiry as soon as possible.
Eight special investigators were working 12-hour shifts, including weekends, he added.
“To give you an idea of the mammoth task before us, so far we have gathered some 400 affidavits from Cyprus and another 200 from abroad.”
People from at least eight countries would be interviewed, he said.
“You understand this is a complicated matter that requires delicate handling,” Papacostas told newsmen.
The news conference in Nicosia was called right after the Attorney general and police chief had met with representatives of grieving relatives and their lawyers.
The meeting comes a month after President Papadopoulos refused to see relatives during a demo on the grounds of the Presidential Palace.
More recently, the President informed the kin that he could not hand them the conclusions of a committee of inquiry – also known as the Kallis report.
Clerides yesterday confirmed that his office would be giving the relatives the minutes of committee hearings, plus any information that “is not of a criminal nature”.
Clerides clarified that not all relatives were filing suits in Greece, since a large number of relatives had already come to agreements with the insurance companies covering Helios Airways.
The relatives are asking for the report to help them take legal action in Greece against plane manufacturers Boeing.
Meanwhile the two-year deadline for filing a civil lawsuit is fast approaching.
“We have always been at their [the relatives’] disposal. Our doors are always open to them,” noted Clerides.
“But we cannot disclose any information that might jeopardise the ongoing criminal investigation,” he added.
Nicolas Yiasoumi, spokesman for the relatives’ committee, told the Mail that their possession of data from the Kallis report was “very important.
“Yes, we are pleased with this development. I must say that, after the President’s refusal to hand over the conclusions of the report, we felt like we were in limbo.”
Christos Triantafyllides, one of the 20 or so lawyers working with the relatives, also welcomed the AG’s move.
“We’ve been promised that by tomorrow we shall have this information,” he said.
Asked whether the Kallis report was a public document, Triantafyllides said it was not, since the committee of inquiry was appointed by the Cabinet in the first place.
As such, the report has been placed in the care of the Cabinet. It is then up to its discretion to disclose any information from it.
The lawsuits are to be filed in an Athens court sometime in the next couple of weeks – cutting it very close.
According to Triantafyllides, since the trial would be held in Greece, the plaintiffs could in theory subpoena witnesses from Cyprus, although witnesses were not obliged to show up.
Hypothetically speaking, that would also go for Panayiotis Kallis, an ex-Supreme Court judge who presided over the committee hearings here in Cyprus.
Triantafyllides said confirmed compensation awarded in Greece for civil actions is more substantial than in Cyprus.
On the island, where the law is based on the Anglo-Saxon model, you need to prove that the claimant is a financial dependent of the deceased.
And the so-called “bereavement award” is fixed at £10,000.
Earlier this year, the relatives suffered a legal setback when the United States District Court, Illinois, upheld a motion by defendants Boeing that the trial should not be held in the United States.
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