On 4 November 2023, Phileleftheros published a report by Ioanna Mantzipa titled “No criminal activity, says the examiner – Everything that was submitted at the inquest into Thanasis Nicolaou’s death”, which made specific reference to a handwritten document and a typed letter, both handed over by Mr Alexopoulos to the investigative team in October 2022.
According to this, Sub-Inspector M.A. explained that “any claim recorded in the letter regarding a specific person was investigated but nothing emerged concerning any person. ‘The individual in question served in the army during a different period and resided in a village in the Nicosia district. He never served in Limassol and at the given time was studying in England,’ he said.”
A television programme on Monday, 6 October 2025, “brought to light” this very same letter, moreover characterising it as “revelatory”. The letter accompanied the related news item on the group’s website, with the names of the people it referred to redacted, and from there it was posted on social media.
And then, on the “X” platform, a comment appeared from an anonymous account which disclosed the names in the letter, even linking them to the individuals’ Facebook profiles.
And a few days later, a well-known and much-discussed TikTok account returned with a video in which it not only named the specific individuals but accompanied the comments with their photographs.
Amongst them was the particular person “who served in the army during a different period and resided in a village in the Nicosia district and never served in Limassol and at the given time was studying in England”.
Within the chaotic universe of social media, in other words, a citizen was targeted as an accomplice to murder—someone who had no connection whatsoever to the deceased and who had never met him in his life, something which he moreover proved with relevant documents that he submitted to the authorities.
How, truly, do you make amends for this defamation? For the shadows and impressions that have been created around a person who demonstrably had no connection whatever to the incident?
The public’s fury at the rot in the executive, legislative and judicial branches is understandable. But let us not fall into the trap of swallowing uncritically whatever is served up to us, however tempting the dish may appear.
The mob will always be a mob, and public opinion is fickle and bears no legal responsibility for its formation and reformation.
But to target citizens by accusing them of a crime, without cross-checking the source and the facts and without even acquainting yourself with the investigations that preceded it, does not in any way constitute resistance to the authorities or to the (undoubtedly) corrupt system.
