Court rules Zavrantonas must respond again to cocaine charges

The Nicosia criminal court on Friday ruled that Georgios Christodoulou Zavrantonas must for a second time respond to charges related to the alleged possession of 15 kilograms of cocaine. He had initially been sentenced to 22 years in prison for the crime in 2022, but in May, the court of appeal ordered a retrial, with his lawyer Christos Poutziouris arguing at the time that when Zavrantonas was initially convicted, the court he faced was not the “natural” court he would have faced, as the composition of its judges changed. Following Friday’s decision, Zavrantonas will be expected to enter a plea, with the Cyprus News Agency reporting that he will make an “unsworn statement”, rather than testify under oath. Now aged 49, Zavrantonas has had various run-ins with the law in the past, having been sentenced to concurrent sentences of 12 years in prison for homicide, six years for carrying a pistol, seven years for using a pistol, and two years for possessing explosives without a licence in 1999. In 2005, he was sentenced to seven years in prison for cultivating a Class B drug with the intent to supply, while in 2010, he was sentenced to eight years in prison for conspiracy to commit murder and four years in prison for conspiracy to commit a felony. More recently, he was sentenced to five years in prison for possessing explosives without a licence, four years in prison for causing grievous bodily harm, and seven years in prison for transporting a firearm in 2014, before the initial 2022 sentencing.