THEODOROS Aristodimou, the founder and managing director of Aristo Developers and former Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank of Cyprus, felt ill and could not attend a remand hearing before the Paphos district court on Friday.
He was admitted to Paphos general hospital with high blood pressure. Doctors decided he should remain there for treatment.
Aristodimou, who also did a stint as chairman of Bank of Cyprus, is the latest of several prominent citizens of Cyprus who fell ill when they faced the prospect of spending time behind bars.
He was among four individuals arrested on Thursday in connection with the demarcation of 177 land plots in Skali, Paphos.
It subsequently emerged that the plans for which the demarcation permits were issued were switched with new plans, which seemed to cede approximately 4,000m² previously designated as green space, back to his company, Aristo Developers.
The three others, including his wife, appeared in court as scheduled but the judge decided to adjourn the proceedings pending a medical certificate.
Some 200 employees of Aristo Developers assembled outside the court in a show of support to their boss.
Aristodemou had denied any wrongdoing, arguing that municipality employees, unfamiliar with regulations, had got their calculations wrong.
PROMINENT businessman Theodoros Aristodemou was one of four persons placed under arrest on Thursday night in a case involving suspected fraudulent zoning in Paphos.
Earlier in the day, a Paphos court had issued warrants for the arrest of Aristodemou, his wife, an engineer formerly contracted by the Paphos municipality, and another person currently employed at the same municipality.
Aristodemou is the boss of Aristo Developers – the island’s largest land developers and the company implicated in the case. His wife Sotiroulla works as an architect for the firm.
Reports said detectives conducted searches of Aristodemou’s home as well as his office.
Depending on the outcome of questioning, police may today bring the suspects before a court and ask that they be remanded into custody.
The arrests follow a police investigation into the demarcation of 177 land plots in Skali, Paphos. Back in July, Paphos mayor Savvas Vergas had tabled Aristo Developer’s file before the municipal council, proposing the approval of zoning and building permits for a total of 177 plots for which the developer had secured a demarcation permit.
The charges facing the four suspects (but not each of them) range from: conspiracy to commit a felony; conspiracy to commit a misdemeanour; conspiracy to defraud; legalising revenues obtained from illicit activities; forgery and circulation of forged documents; abuse of power; wilful misconduct and abuse of trust by a public officer; issuing of forged certificates by a public officer; securing a certificate under false pretences; and extracting moneys under false pretences.
The case was first brought to the police’s attention by a Paphos municipality officer.
It subsequently emerged that the plans for which the demarcation permits were issued were switched with new plans, which seemed to cede approximately 4,000m² previously designated as green space, back to Aristo.
Aristodemou had denied any wrongdoing, arguing that municipality employees, unfamiliar with regulations, had got their calculations wrong.
According to Aristodemou, the real gap between the municipality’s and his company’s calculations does not exceed 900m², and his company could not benefit from it under any circumstances since the Land Registry routinely spots such mistakes and amends developments accordingly prior to issuing title deeds.
At a news conference that he called earlier this month, the entrepreneur hinted the allegations of malfeasance were being orchestrated by competitors, since the issue regarding the demarcation of these particular plots surfaced in 2014, whereas the permits were issued back in 2010.
One of the best known businessmen in Cyprus, Aristodemou is the founder and chairman of Aristo Developers Ltd. He has held many positions in both the private and public sectors, including on the Paphos Chamber of Commerce, the board of directors of telecoms utility CyTA, the board of Cyprus Airways and chairman of the board at Bank of Cyprus.
Shortly after news of the arrest warrants came out, the company released a statement, saying both Aristodemou and his wife were ready to cooperate with police.
Both he and his spouse would hand themselves over to the police within the day, the statement added.
The company said it fully intended to cooperate with authorities in order to “shed light on the case, which is a conspiracy against Mr. Aristodemou, his family and our company.”
OF ALL the stories I’ve had the (dis)pleasure to report over the past ten years, none can match the gross stupidity of the numbnuts ‘working’ at the Paphos Land Registry!
Many foreigners and Cypriots have been advised by their developer that their Title Deeds have been issued and are available for transfer, which of course is very good news.
But when some of those who bought property in Paphos visit the Land Registry to pay the Property Transfer Fees to get Title to the property registered in their name and secure its undisputed ownership, they are turned away. Why should this be?
When visiting a Land Registry to affect the transfer, buyers are required to take their identity card or other documents, such as their passport and residence permit, to confirm their identity.
However, the numbnuts at the Paphos Land Registry refuse to accept a British passport to confirm someone’s identity unless it was the one they used when they applied for their residence permit.
British buyers will immediately see the obvious flaw in this logic, which appears only to be in operation in Paphos (hopefully the disease of the brain will not spread to the other Land Registry offices):
A British Passport is normally valid for a period of ten years (or five years for British citizens up to the age of 15.)
Shortly before its expiry a passport is renewed.
Once the ‘new’ passport has been received, the ‘old’ passport is usually destroyed to prevent the risk of it falling into the wrong hands and being used for fraudulent purposes (which carries a heavy fine.)
A ‘new’ passport is issued with a different number to the ‘old’ one.
So if you are British and have bought a property in Paphos, but have subsequently renewed your passport and sensibly destroyed the ‘old’ one, the chance of getting your Title Deed even though it is ready for transfer is zero! (Perhaps if you burnt your ‘old’ passport you could take the ashes to the Land Registry – you never know, the numbnuts there may accept it.)
Faced with this problem, one British buyer requested a copy of her ‘old’ passport from the UK authorities. I’m sure it will come as shock to many (in particular those working at the Paphos Land Registry to learn that Her Majesty’s Government, quite sensibly, will not produce a copy of an old passport as it would be invalid and could therefore not be used for identification purposes or as a travel document; attempting to use it in this way would result in a heavy fine.
Even though this British buyer reported the facts to the Paphos Land Registry, they refused to budge.
THE SUPREME Court will on Tuesday begin hearing arguments for and against the president’s refusal to sign off on four bills related to repossessions legislation.
President Nicos Anastasiades last week referred four pieces of legislation – passed by the House majority – to the Supreme Court, after having refused to sign them into law on the grounds that they are unconstitutional.
The president has meantime sent back to parliament two other related items. Altogether the six items contain clauses which international lenders have said are incommensurate with the aim of speeding up foreclosures proceedings – designed to help banks recover non-performing loans running in the billions of euros.
Eurozone finance ministers last week said Cyprus would not be eligible for the next tranche of financial assistance unless and until it resolves the question of the six contentious pieces of legislation, which the opposition here are nevertheless adamant on pushing through.
The next deadline is the scheduled Eurogroup meeting of October 13, and the government is locked in a race against time to resolve the matter domestically prior to that date. In the event the hurdle of the offending legislation is overcome, that would pave the way for the Euro working group to inform eurozone finance ministers that Cyprus is on track with its adjustment programme and to recommend the disbursement of the next bailout tranche.
Speaking to Stockwatch, Finance Minister Harris Georgiades said he was hopeful that scenario would pan out.
In addition to the showdown at the Supreme Court, another battle will be unfolding within the corridors of parliament.
On Tuesday the House finance committee convenes to review the two items sent back by the president. Over the coming days, opposition parties must decide on whether to agree to “kill” the items or amend them. But should they insist on their enactment as is, the president would then refer this legislation as well to the Supreme Court. By law, parliament has two weeks to reach a decision either way.
Meanwhile the House plenary this Thursday may serve up yet another twist to the foreclosures saga. It’s understood that main opposition AKEL are mulling inserting an amendment into the government’s core repo bill delaying the bill’s coming into force.
This is presumably possible because, although the bill was passed by the House on September 6, it hasn’t been published in the government gazette and is thus not an enacted law yet.
After a bill has been passed by the House, it takes two weeks for it to be published in the gazette, which for the foreclosures legislation in question would mean this coming Saturday.
That in turn means that this Thursday’s plenary is the last chance to vote on an amendment stalling implementation of the legislation because Saturday, September 20 is the date on which the bill makes it into the gazette.
However it would be pointless for AKEL to even attempt tabling such a revision without the backing – tacit or otherwise – of DIKO.
AKEL are opposed to the standalone enactment of the government’s foreclosures legislation – even though they voted for it – arguing that it must be coupled with passage of bankruptcy legislation providing a ‘safety net’ to financially vulnerable mortgagors.
DIKO itself has gone silent since the Eurogroup’s thumbs-down last week, but the other opposition parties are ratcheting up the pressure.
In a defiant statement, the Greens lashed out at Cyprus’ international lenders, accusing them of wanting to “foist the yoke of slavery on the Cypriot people”.
The Greens called on political parties to form a united front against the troika in order to head off total devastation of the economy through ill-advised measures such as mass foreclosures.
Socialists EDEK reiterated they would not assent to the enactment of the government’s foreclosures legislation unless the complementary bills are also enacted.
Government sources said yesterday that when the foreclosures issue is resolved, Cyprus will have only two more major hurdles to overcome – the privatisation of semi-government bodies and the adoption of the NHS. It is hopeful that by autumn next year, Cyprus would be free of the troika, the sources said.
NON-PERFORMING loans (NPLs) at banks are a concern for the island’s economy with new Central Bank data revealing that bankers lent hundreds of millions without proper examination of customer data or sufficient collateral provided.
This has resulted in most of these loans being up to 100% non-serviceable with huge delays.
The loans of the 20 largest borrowers amount to billions with the biggest problem recorded in Bank of Cyprus (BoC), according to Central Bank data.
At the island’s biggest lender, BoC, the total of non-serviceable loans of the 20 largest debts amount to €3.08 billion, delays amount to 1.32 billion (42.8%) and collateral amounts to just €2.89 billion. Total lending to the 20 borrowers amounts to €3.98 billion.
At Hellenic Bank the total amount of loans is €698 million with €645m being non-serviceable and delays amounting to €263 million (40.7%). The collateral is at €1.01 billion.
At the Co-operative sector the biggest loan amounts to €20.26 million in relation to €478 million at the BoC and €96m at Hellenic Bank.
At Co-ops total of loans of the 20 debtors amount to €195.46m but almost all of it is non-serviceable with €191.14 million.
FOLLOWING a meeting of the Eurogroup earlier today in Milan its president, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, made the following remarks at a press conference concerning the release of the next bailout tranche to Cyprus.
“The Troika debriefed us on the main findings of the fifth review.
“We welcomed and complimented the considerable progress made by the Cypriot authorities.
“We, however, understand that due to the latest amendments introduced by the parliament, there is one important pending issue in the current review and this relates to the legal framework for private debt restructuring, which is essential part of the next steps to be taken.
“We call on all domestic stakeholders to assume their responsibility and ensure that adequate foreclosure and insolvency legislation is in place as soon as possible, in line with the MoU.
“Once the Troika institutions confirm that the required prior actions have been successfully completed, we can proceed with the disbursement of the next tranche.”
In a statement earlier this week spokesman Simon O’Connor of the European Commission said that parts of the legislation passed by the Cyprus parliament last Saturday “are not compatible with the requirements of the MoU”; a view that was echoed by deputy International Monetary Fund (IMF) spokesman William Murray.
FOLLOWING a meeting of the Eurogroup earlier today in Milan its president, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, made the following remarks at a press conference concerning the release of the next bailout tranche to Cyprus.