By Martin Hellicar
ANTI-CORRUPTION crusader Christos Pourgourides has been accused of using his position as deputy to get a law amended for the benefit of one of his legal clients.
The Disy deputy does not deny backing the bill to help his client and says he sees nothing wrong in that.
But prominent Nicosia advocate Pavlos Angelides yesterday demanded that the lawyer-deputy resign his position in the House over what he described as abuse of power.
Pourgourides, the chairman of the House watchdog committee, has grabbed the headlines in recent months with his persistent campaign to nail Dinos Michaelides for allegedly abusing his power as Interior Minister. Pourgourides’s claims eventually forced Michaelides to resign — but Angelides now alleges the Disy deputy is guilty of the same sort of corrupt practices he charges the former Minister of.
“I charge Pourgourides’ legal practice with taking advantage of Christos Pourgourides’ position as deputy to secure a change in the law concerning uncovered cheques with the aim of overturning a court conviction,” Angelides stated in a letter sent to House president Spyros Kyprianou last week, and released yesterday.
On April 30, the House plenum approved a legal amendment that means the issuing of a dud cheque in payment for illegal goods or services is not an offence.
A few weeks before this, on March 8, the Supreme Court had overturned a District court decision acquitting businessman Savvas Kyriakides — a client of Pourgourides’ legal practice — of charges of issuing dud cheques worth almost £65,000 to a doctor.
Angelides claimed Pourgourides’ son Evangelos, who represented Kyriakides, secured two postponements to sentencing solely in order to allow time for the plenum to amend the law, believing this would get his client off the hook. The court had accepted that the dud cheques had been issued to repay debts incurred under conditions that amounted to illegal usury (interest of 42 per cent). Under the amended law, Kyriakides would not be culpable for writing a dud cheque for an illegal transaction.
“On March 15, 1999, the convicted appeared before the Supreme Court with his lawyer for sentencing, but asked for and secured a postponement till April 20 to allow him time to repay his debt. On April 20 he asked for a further postponement, again to repay his debts. Sentencing was set for May 17,” the lawyer said.
On May 17 — the plenum having meanwhile approved the law change — Evangelos Pourgourides “triumphantly” presented the new law, claiming his client could no longer be sentenced, Angelides said.
The court did, however, sentence Kyriakides, stating that the issue was that bouncing cheques had been issued and it mattered not what for.
“I believe the lawyers’ disciplinary board should take action against Pourgourides and the House should fully investigate his political responsibilities,” Angelides stated in his letter.
Christos Pourgourides sent Angelides a letter in response to his claims yesterday, defending his actions and explaining his reasons for pushing the legal amendment.
He said the aim of the amendment was to avoid people being punished for actions that the House did not consider illegal.
“Where, under the circumstances, is the unethical conduct? When a deputy is handling a case as a lawyer and something unjust is happening at the expense of his client, is it unethical for him to try and stop this injustice?” Pourgourides asked in the letter, released late yesterday.
“My conscience is clear that I did what duty demanded. I would do the same without hesitation if it came up again tomorrow,” the deputy stated.
He also said that Angelides had “political” motives for levelling accusations against him, and noted that Angelides represented the doctor in the court case.
