A Paphos resident filed a formal police complaint alleging that suspended mayor Phedon Phedonos threatened to withhold an approved planning permit unless he withdrew an earlier complaint against him — an allegation Phedonos categorically denies.
Police investigated the case and forwarded the file to the Law Office of the Republic, which instructed that it be classified as “Non-Police matter.” Police sources with knowledge of the matter told Phileleftheros the case is considered closed.
Phileleftheros contacted the Law Office yesterday. After being given details of the case, an official said the request for the Attorney General’s position would be examined and answered within the coming days.
Background
The dispute centres on a Turkish Cypriot property allocated to the complainant, a Paphos resident who is a refugee. In early 2021, the mayor visited the property with a crew.
The complainant alleges Phedonos carried out an illegal intervention — removing doors from the building and causing significant financial damage.
On 10 February 2021, the resident filed a police complaint alleging illegal intervention and property damage. Senior police officers and the then-chief of police, Stelios Papatheodorou, were aware of the complaint, according to Phileleftheros.
Phedonos told Phileleftheros he did visit the property with a crew, but said the purpose was to demolish a wall he described as an unauthorised extension built after 1975.
“It was damaging the architecture and the beautiful rectangular part of the courtyard. There was no personal interest,” he said, adding: “I told him, ‘I don’t want to force you out to rent it to someone close to me, a friend of mine.'”
The planning permit
The complainant applied for a planning permit for the property on 23 April 2021. It was approved by the planning committee on 20 October 2021 and subsequently by the full Municipal Council on 13 December 2021. According to documents in Phileleftheros’s possession, the permit had still not been delivered to him nearly two years after his application.
Phedonos acknowledged a delay but disputed its extent and motive. “We delayed delivering the planning permit by one to two months — not to extort him into withdrawing the complaint he made against me,” he said.
The extortion allegation
The complainant alleges that on the afternoon of 20 March 2023, while he was with his parents, he received a phone call from Phedonos in which the mayor told him: “To receive your permit you must withdraw the complaint you made against me to the police” — referring to the complaint of 10 February 2021.
The resident filed this allegation with police. The case was subsequently classified as Non-Police in Nature following instructions from the Attorney General after an internal assessment of the available evidence.
Phedonos told Phileleftheros: “I 100% reject” the allegation. He confirmed the complainant had filed the complaint but said even the police had not taken it into account.
Documents and correspondence
Phileleftheros has obtained documentation supporting the complainant’s account, including a series of letters sent to the suspended mayor, the Cyprus Police, the Ministry of Interior, and the Turkish Cypriot Property Management Service, as well as minutes of council meetings recording the progress of the planning permit application.
Among the documents is a written response from the Turkish Cypriot Property Management Service, dated 10 February 2022, which told the complainant that the service “does not intend to demolish or is examining any application by the Paphos Municipality for the allocation of the property you are leasing.”
Domestic violence and sexual abuse investigations
Asked about separate police investigations into allegations of domestic violence and sexual abuse, Phedonos said that as of yesterday midday no one had officially approached him.
He said he had not yet given a formal statement to investigators and would act through his lawyers, without elaborating further.
Audit Office inquiry
The provincial Environment Department has since begun investigating the landfill issue, according to information available to Phileleftheros.
Former Auditor General Odysseas Michaelides said via the platform X that in autumn 2023 his office sent police a multi-page letter with findings on financial and administrative matters following complaints against the Paphos mayor.
“As far as I recall, until my dismissal in September 2024, we had received no update on the outcome of the investigations,” he said.
Michaelides added that in December 2022, following a complaint by an MP on the parliamentary Refugees Committee, his office issued a special report on the allocation of 19 Turkish Cypriot commercial properties to Paphos Municipality — properties that had been published as available in June 2021. The mayor’s response to the office’s observations is attached to that report, he said.
On the Audit Office inquiry, Phedonos cited the municipality’s audited financial accounts, which he said are complete through 2023 — ahead of other municipalities.
He said an administrative audit of seven municipal projects had concluded with a finding of “no fault whatsoever,” and that the municipality received a pan-European good governance and transparency award for 2023-24.
He added that he personally received an award from an international transparency committee in 2017 for good practices.
