By Aline Davidian
THE NICOSIA Assizes yesterday ruled that potentially crucial evidence was inadmissible in the trial of the three Aeroporos brothers charged with the attempted murder of Antonis Fanieros.
The evidence in dispute was a Cyta computer record of calls made to and from the mobile phone of chief prosecution witness, Tassos Symellides, 28, on the night of the shooting. Such recordings might have proved that Symellides had contact with the accused before and after the May 29 hit in Larnaca. This would have lent weight to Symellides’ testimony that the Aeroporos brothers Panicos, 25, Andros, 30, and Hambis, 35, were, respectively, hit-man, architect and instigator for the attack on Fanieros, 57.
The brothers deny their charges.
Defence lawyer Efstathios Efstathiou had objected to the recordings being used as evidence, claiming they were inadmissible as hearsay. He also said they would violate constitutional privacy laws.
Prosecutor Petros Clerides had maintained the recordings were real evidence and therefore not restricted by the rule against hearsay.
Presiding judge Dimitris Hadjihambis said yesterday that according to the British cases Wood and Spyby, computer recordings could be deemed real evidence; according to the Cypriot case Attorney-General v. Prokopiou, however, such evidence was inadmissible if technicians calibrating the recording computer had not given sworn testimony in the case.
He also said the records in this case had been copied from the computer hard disk to other transportable disks and that this “broke the chain of causation” between the initial recordings and the copies eventually presented to police, thus violating the hearsay rule.
This refuted Clerides’ argument that all the copying of computer files formed one complete process or system.
“We cannot connect the recordings with anything,” said Hadjihambis, adding that such print-outs no longer represented the initial event – the recording of the phone calls. The “intervention of the human mind,” said Hadjihambis, had flouted the original purpose of the recordings – the means to allow Cyta to charge the caller. This had been altered when the files were copied onto disks to be used as police evidence.
Hadjihambis said laws protecting rights had to be “interpreted strictly”, so that even if the evidence had been admissible, its release would have been in breach of constitutional privacy laws.
The Cyprus constitution had incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights, said Hadjihambis, adding that a third party – Cyta in this case – could not release recorded phone numbers without the consent of both parties to the call.
“Symellides’ consent is not enough,” he said, and stressed that “the pursuit of truth is no excuse for the watering down of rights.”
The trial is set to continue on January 14.
