Yesterday’s press conference by the Law Office was not a routine briefing on a lost case. It was a panic-stricken institutional defence against a society that, for the first time on such a scale, is openly questioning the credibility of the criminal justice system. They came to build themselves a moral shield against public criticism.
The Syllouris-Giovanis case — which shook Cyprus to its foundations, sending tremors far beyond this tiny republic’s borders — was never an ordinary criminal case. It was the scandal that exposed our small but dearly beloved country to the world as a nation that traded passports for profit. It damaged the Republic’s standing. It undermined the trust of partners and institutions. It put the rule of law itself in the dock.
This case — the most consequential of the past decade — went to trial. Society watched closely, hoping against its own pessimism that a conviction might wash away at least some of the enormous shame. Those hopes have proved hollow.
It collapsed. And those who bear full responsibility for that collapse were nowhere to be seen. Giorgos Savvides and Savvas Angelides stayed well away from the cameras yesterday. They did not come out and say “yes, we failed.” Not even “we will investigate what went wrong.” Instead, they dispatched three of the Law Office’s most capable officers to pull their chestnuts out of the fire.
The intention was transparent. Let those officers absorb the wave of public fury. Because had the two chiefs stepped forward themselves, all they would have achieved was pouring oil on the flames — and turning those chestnuts to ash. But that is not institutional responsibility. It is cowardly institutional hide-and-seek.
At the press conference, the attempt was made to shift the blame onto the witnesses. We were told that a key witness changed their position. That they cited fear and illness. That an undercover Al Jazeera journalist had dropped off the radar. All of this may be true. But it is not the point.
The point is that for over two years, the Law Office failed to secure the attendance of its key witnesses. It did not protect them. It did not bind them procedurally. It did not build a robust enough framework to prevent them from backing out.
That, Mr Savvides and Mr Angelides, is called incompetence. And when it happens in the most high-profile corruption case in the country’s recent history, it cannot be brushed off as a simple mistake. It is a catastrophic institutional failure. As for the appeal — give it a rest. It’s for appearances only, and people have worked you out by now.
Rather than stand humbly before the public, the Law Office chose to speak of “Thermopylae,” of bomb attacks, of the need for a protective veil. In doing so, it effectively cast society as the aggressor — for reacting, for being outraged. This is a dangerous inversion of reality. Criticism has been reframed as threat, and failure dressed up as patriotic duty.
But Cyprus will not be saved by silence. It can only be saved by transparency and accountability. At one point during the press conference, the otherwise highly regarded Ms Evthyvoulou said that “it doesn’t matter who is in charge.” But of course it matters. Institutions do not run themselves. They are “driven” by people. And when those same people accumulate failures, or when society looks upon them with deep suspicion, the question of whether they should remain in their posts is entirely legitimate.
The Law Office has never faced this level of public distrust before. There has never been this accumulation of collapsing cases. Never this much suspicion. Never this much doubt. Does that not tell them something?
The argument that “there are convictions every day for other crimes” is beside the point. We are talking about the case that defined Cyprus’s shame. The scandal that put this country in the international crosshairs. On that, the Law Office delivered precisely nothing.
The most revealing moment of the press conference was the admission that the court had found there was “a case to answer.” Exactly. There was a case. There was evidence. There were testimonies. And yet there was no conviction.
That means someone failed to prove what they had in their hands. That someone is not the public. It is not journalists. It is the Law Office. And the responsibility for that failure lies squarely with its leadership. We said it yesterday and we say it again today: the issue is not that the case was lost. It is how it was lost.
Society is not asking for revenge. It is asking for accountability. And until Savvides and Angelides stand before it and take responsibility for the biggest judicial fiasco of the decade, the distrust will only deepen. The Republic is not threatened by criticism, gentlemen. It is threatened by failure in cases of this magnitude. And by the complete refusal to accept responsibility.
No institution is weakened by being held to account. It is weakened when it seeks to avoid accountability. The Law Office does not need a protective veil. It needs straight answers. It needs leadership that stands in front of the cameras and has the courage to say: “We failed — criticise us.” Not leadership that hides behind its officers and invokes fear to escape institutional responsibility.
Society, Mr Savvides and Mr Angelides, is not asking for miracles. It is asking only for what every state owes its citizens: that no major failure goes without political or institutional accountability being assumed. It demands a reckoning. Liberation from the gangrene of corruption. Unfortunately, that is beyond you…
