issued by the Registrar of the Court
ECHR 277 (2024)
26.11.2024
Accomplice testimony in property-corruption case did not compromise trial
no. 1618/18) the European Court of Human Rights held that there had been:
by 5 votes to 2, no violation of Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair trial) of the European Convention on
Human Rights, and
by 5 votes to 2, no violation of Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (b) (right to adequate time and facilities for
preparation of defence)
The case concerned Mr Souroullas’s conviction for money laundering and Mr Zannettos’s for
extortion in connection with a land deal. A key part of the evidence had been the testimony of N.L.,
a property entrepreneur and owner of ALKI Larnaca, a football club. N.L. had been given immunity
from prosecution after he had given statements implicating, among others, the applicants.
The Court found in particular that the trial had not been compromised by the inclusion of N.L.’s
evidence as the national courts had been cautious in treating that evidence, and there had been
other corroboration available too.
As regards the applicants’ demand to examine the prosecution’s copy of N.L’s hard disks to prove
collusion, the Court was satisfied that the national courts had heard the argument on the matter and
had denied the request with reasoned decisions. The applicants’ arguments in this connection were
entirely hypothetical.
Principal facts
The applicants, Gregoris Souroullas Kay and Venizelos Zannettos, are Cypriot nationals who were
born in 1966 and 1947 respectively and live in Larnaca (Cyprus).
In 2013 an inquiry was set up into a suspicious land deal in Dromolaxia, near Larnaca Airport. The
authorities suspected that the original owner, a Turkish Cypriot, had had no right to sell the land,
and worried that the pension fund of CYTA, a State-owned telecommunications provider, had made
a bad investment.
A police investigation followed, leading to a search of the offices of the private company that had
bought the land and the home of its director, N.L. He was a property entrepreneur and chairman of
ALKI Larnaca, a financially troubled football club associated with the AKEL political party. The police
seized computer hard drives during the searches. N.L. was charged with bribery on 10 September
2013.
Two days later, N.L. contacted investigators and stated he would cooperate and be a prosecution
witness. In the following two months he made four written statements overall to the effect that
bribes had been given as part of a conspiracy to sell the land to CYTA’s pension fund at an inflated
price; he admitted his own guilt; he implicated seven other people and one company, including the
applicants; he stated that Mr Souroullas had laundered bribe money paid to a representative of the
1. Under Articles 43 and 44 of the Convention, this Chamber judgment is not final. During the three-month period following its delivery,
any party may request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the Court. If such a request is made, a panel of five judges
considers whether the case deserves further examination. In that event, the Grand Chamber will hear the case and deliver a final
judgment. If the referral request is refused, the Chamber judgment will become final on that day.
Once a judgment becomes final, it is transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for supervision of its execution.
Further information about the execution process can be found here: www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/execution.
