Evidence discrepancy sparks clash in prison documents trial

Prosecutors and defence lawyers got into a heated argument on Thursday over the evidence being presented in court, in the trial concerning the alleged theft of thousands of documents from the central prisons. The dispute arose after the prosecution called to the witness stand CID sergeant Argyris Petrakos – the officer assigned with the safekeeping of the evidence. Once the boxes were unsealed, and its contents counted before the court, a discrepancy emerged between the actual count and the paperwork listing the contents. The boxes contained 436 DVD drives, 15 USB drives, 100 floppy disks and one hard disk. The devices contain the data, in digitised form, of the approximately 48,000 documents believed to have been stolen from the central prisons in 2022. Due to the discrepancy, prosecutors called for a postponement, asking for time to recount the material. The defendants’ attorneys objected strongly. The court went into recess, taking it upon itself to count the evidentiary items. It likewise found a difference between the actual number of items and the paperwork. Prior to the unsealing of the boxes, the defendants had raised serious objections as to the forthcoming testimony of Petrakos, given that prosecutors were about to ask him, on the record, about the contents. The defence said Petrakos could not go on the record, because he was not the officer who initially took custody of the boxes. He had been assigned custody by another officer, Panicos Constantinou. “Does he even know what they [the boxes] contain?” said Chris Triantafyllides, one of the defence attorneys. Prosecutors countered that although the witness did not personally know the content of the boxes, that should not prevent the evidence being presented in court. Asked by the court whether he would subsequently call Constantinou to the stand, lead prosecutor Vasilis Bisas said yes. The court then allowed the unsealing of the boxes, with Petrakos permitted to describe its contents. The trial continues on November 10, when the defence is expected to begin its cross-examination of Petrakos. On trial are the former director of the prisons Anna Aristotelous, former vice-director Athena Demetriou, five prison wardens and a former employee of the prisons who is now a police officer. They have all pleaded not guilty. The indictment includes conspiracy to commit a felony, abuse of power, violation of official confidentiality, personal data processing offenses, theft by a civil servant, violation of the security rules for classified documents and illegal possession of property. The documents cache was found in April 2025 in the house of a chief prison warden. Police had been searching the premises as part of an investigation into a different case. Many of the documents are marked ‘confidential’ and ‘secret’ and are believed to have been removed illegally from the prisons between November and December 2022.