Developments are unfolding around the Central Prisons and the case of thousands of documents found by police at a prison guard’s home.
Procedures are underway to suspend former prisons Director Anna Aristotelous and former Deputy Director Athena Dimitriou, who are charged alongside six prison guards in the high-profile case involving thousands of documents found at a guard’s home instead of at the prison.
The Public Service Commission is expected to decide today on the auditor general’s request to suspend Dimitriou. She has been informed of the request and asked for her views.
Aristotelous’s case is complicated because she is due to take up duties as director general on 1 December. The former prisons director, currently seconded to the Presidential Palace, has been on suspension whilst the documents case was under investigation.
The suspension is set to expire soon, and the presidency has requested a legal opinion on how to proceed.
Because of this pending issue, the Cabinet did not proceed last week with assigning the five new directors general, including Aristotelous, to ministries or departments. This is expected to happen next Thursday at the Cabinet meeting, as all must take up duties on 1 December.
The Law Office’s opinion will determine what actions are needed to request that the former prisons director be suspended again, whether the Public Service Commission should decide under her current status, or whether the Cabinet should decide once she takes up duties.
Both women have reacted strongly to the criminal prosecution against them and, through their lawyer, said they have nothing to fear, warning that if authorities want a fight, they will get one, in an apparent reference to the Law Office, which decided to prosecute them.
Meanwhile, the prisons director position will be advertised next week so it can be properly filled and end the acting arrangement, which has not produced the best results, according to sources.
The Justice Ministry is considering various options for the position whilst also pushing through changes at the correctional facility to tackle accumulated problems with inmates threatening prison officials and even the assistant attorney general, organising crimes from their cells and other complaints that add to illegal use of mobile phones and drugs.
The new mobile phone jamming system recently installed is expected to largely solve the problem of mobiles that criminal elements used to communicate outside the prison, whilst criminalising their possession and use will resolve many issues, officials estimate.
For the prisons sector, the government intends to make drastic changes so that prisoners receive humane treatment whilst illegal activities are stopped as far as possible, sources said.
