Four go on trial for graft over Cyprus passports scheme
A court in Cyprus ordered a former senior state official and three others to stand trial for suspected corruption next month in connection with a lucrative cash-for-passports scheme abandoned in 2020.
The island was forced to scrap a citizenship-for-investment program in late 2020 following a barrage of media reports that the system was open to abuse.
Four people, including former parliamentary speaker Demetris Syllouris, a former MP, a property executive and a lawyer, will appear before a criminal court on October 26, the district court in the capital Nicosia ruled on Monday.
They have all denied any wrongdoing.
Just over 7,000 people received citizenship from 2007 to 2020 under the program, popular particularly with Russian and Chinese investors.
Before it was shut down a Cyprus passport could be obtained by an investor, and by extension members of their families, for a minimum investment of 2 million euros.
All four suspects were featured in a documentary filmed by the Al Jazeera network aired in 2020, where undercover journalists posed as fixers to get a passport for a fictitious Asian investor with a criminal record. [Reuters]
