By Martin Hellicar
EMBATTLED Interior Minister Dinos Michaelides has been cleared by cabinet- appointed investigators of possible criminal misdemeanours relating to alleged corruption.
“There is no evidence to justify criminal proceedings against the Interior Minister for either of the allegations investigated,” Attorney-general Alecos Markides announced yesterday afternoon after spending the weekend studying the investigators’ findings.
On November 21, Law Commissioner George Stavrinakis and Andreas Shiakas of the Auditor-general’s office were appointed by the Council of Ministers to look into two of the 14 corruption allegations levelled at Michaelides by Disy deputy and House watchdog committee chairman Christos Pourgourides. An earlier investigation into all 14 charges by the Auditor-general’s office led to 12 of them being dismissed as groundless.
The accusations investigated by Stavrinakis and Shiakas concerned alleged abuse of power at the immigration department and alleged unlawful enrichment through the sale of apartments.
Michaelides tendered his resignation after the two investigators were appointed but President Clerides chose not to accept it.
Markides said he, Stavrinakis, Shiakas, and state attorney Petros Clerides (who independently reviewed the investigators’ report), had arrived at the same vindicating conclusion.
But Michaelides may not be completely off the hook yet. The unlawful enrichment claim proved totally without basis, Markides said, but investigators did find that the minister had, on at least five occasions, taken decisions concerning immigration issues without ever looking at the case files of the persons concerned.
While such actions did not constitute an offence, they might throw up a “political issue” concerning the minister’s use of authority, Markides said. The Attorney-general added that such issues had not been within the remit of the investigators to decide and were not for him to comment on either.
Also, Markides said the minister was to be further investigated on two issues related to Pourgourides’ accusations. One, concerning possible tax evasion, is to be looked into by the Income Tax office. The other investigation, to be carried out by Petros Clerides, concerns a report by the Technical Chamber (Etek) – submitted after the investigators were appointed – on the minister’s involvement in land deals in the Sea Caves beauty spot outside Paphos.
Markides said it had not proved possible to probe Pourgourides’ allegations that the minister had taken bribes to grant immigration department permits “as Mr Pourgourides did not divulge his source to investigators to enable them to make a start.” Pourgourides refused to testify before Stavrinakis and Shiakas, labelling the probe a “sham.”
Michaelides, who recently returned from extended leave in Greece, has always maintained his complete innocence.
