The defence of Giorgos Christodoulou-Zavrantonas, on retrial at the Nicosia Criminal Court accused of possessing 15 kilos of cocaine for supply, closed its case on Monday after calling two witnesses. Zavrantonas will remain silent, his lawyer Christos Poutziouris told the court, and closing speeches are set for November 17.
At the previous hearing, the court ruled that there was a prima facie case against Zavrantonas, finding the prosecution’s main evidence sufficient at this stage for him to be called to present his defence.
The Anti-Drugs Unit (YKAN) found the drugs in Lakatamia in January 2019. Giannis Andreou, known as ‘Maronas’, and Aristos Kyprianou were convicted in July 2019 and jailed for 16 and eight years respectively. Andreou later named Zavrantonas as the mastermind in a new statement, leading to charges against him. Zavrantonas was sentenced to 22 years on December 12, 2022, but the Court of Appeal overturned the ruling on May 11, 2026, citing an error in the composition of the trial court, and ordered a retrial.
The two defence witnesses were Viktoras Akamas, Andreou’s lawyer in 2019, when Andreou took responsibility for the drugs case, and Giannis Kofteros, an officer at the telecommunications company that held Andreou’s mobile numbers.
Lawyer’s fee
The hearing first focused on who paid Akamas and how. Akamas said a relative of Andreou had paid him, while the prosecution suggested the money came from Zavrantonas’s side.
Questioned by prosecutor Vasilis Bissas, Akamas said he had invoiced Andreou 4,300 euros. He received the money on January 27, 2019, issued a receipt and deposited it at the bank himself the next day, he said. Both the invoice and the receipt were in his client’s name.
Asked how he had received the money when Andreou had been in prison since January 16, Akamas said: “Giannis Andreou certainly did not come to my office.” He said he was almost certain Andreou’s brother had made the payment.
Bissas put it to him that he could have written on the receipt the name of the person who handed over the money. Akamas disagreed, saying the payment was made on Andreou’s behalf and that this was how receipts were issued. In that case, Bissas replied, he could have written that the payment was received for Andreou rather than from him. “You did not write it so it would never emerge who you got the money from,” Bissas said, maintaining that the sum had come from Zavrantonas’s side.
Phone data
When Andreou testified at the retrial on July 16, 2026, Poutziouris put it to him that he had falsely testified to collecting the drugs from Klavdia, where he claims Zavrantonas had placed them. Poutziouris showed him a statement in which a reference to passing the Rizoelia roundabout on the way to collect the drugs had been struck out and corrected above to the Kalo Chorio roundabout. He suggested Andreou had initially lied and made the correction, with a false reference to the Kalo Chorio roundabout, after learning of another witness’s statement.
On Monday, Poutziouris presented a disc of telecommunications data, on which he based his examination of Kofteros. It contained three files: the court order for the release of the data, the data for the phone numbers the court had requested, and a report of the results.
The questioning focused on two of Andreou’s phone numbers and their movements between 5pm and 10pm on January 16, 2019. Kofteros said four calls were recorded in that period, which appeared to trace a route through Lakatamia, the Tseri industrial area, Nisou, Agia Varvara, Lakatamia again and Aglandjia.
Asked whether the company’s antenna at Kalo Chorio had picked up a signal from Andreou’s mobile, Kofteros said that, on the basis of the data, it did not appear to have done so.
Cross-examining Kofteros, Bissas asked whether, for an antenna to pick up a signal, the phone number had to make or receive a call or send or receive a message. Kofteros said yes. Bissas then put it to him that someone could go to Limassol and come back to Nicosia without any antenna picking them up, if none of that happened, and Kofteros agreed.
