A senior officer and a secretarial officer from the Cyprus Tourism Organisation (CTO) testified for the prosecution at the Permanent Criminal Court on Monday in the trial of Ayia Napa mayor Christos Zannettou over an alleged grant fraud.
Zannettou is accused of forging a hotel’s financial statements to secure an EU grant of 765,486 euros. The statements, for 2007, were submitted to the CTO in 2009. Zannettou, a shareholder and director of the hotel at the time, has pleaded not guilty. The company L. Ioannou & Z. Pieris Limited is also a defendant.
Ilias Liasi, a senior internal audit officer at the CTO, read out the statement he had given to police. In it, he said the hotel had been audited over the application it made when a scheme offering EU funding was announced.
Under cross-examination by Zannettou’s lawyer, Ilias Stefanou, Liasi confirmed that the grant report had been prepared by his subordinates, adding that he signed it after examining it.
Danae Antoniadou, a CTO assistant secretarial officer who was responsible for receiving applications, also gave evidence.
The trial resumes on October 8, when the first prosecution witness, who was abroad on Monday, is due to testify.
The Audit Office brought the case to light. In a 2019 special report on the CTO, it said that borrowing figures in the company’s 2007 balance sheet “are presented at lower amounts, which shows that the financial statements submitted as audited had been falsified”.
Zannettou was charged in July 2024, shortly after his re-election. The start of the trial was delayed by about two years by six successive postponements.
