Published on 8 November 2021

THIRD SECTION

Application no. 1618/18 Grigoris SOUROULLAS KEY and Venizelos ZANETTOS against Cyprus lodged on 3 January 2018 communicated on 20 October 2021

STATEMENT OF FACTS

The applicants, Mr Grigoris Souroullas Key and Mr Venizelos Zanettos, are Cypriot nationals, who were born in 1966 and 1947 respectively and live in Larnaca. They are represented before the Court by Mr K. Paraskeva, a lawyer practising in Nicosia.

The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.

The applicants were among eight defendants in a criminal trial concerning the sale of an overpriced office building to the pension fund of the Cyprus Telecommunication Authority. The prosecution became possible after the key participant in the deal (L.) had agreed to testify against the defendants in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

At the trial before the Larnaca Assize Court, the applicants sought to discredit L.’s testimony by alleging his undue cooperation with investigators. They claimed that such cooperation became possible after a police forensic examiner had read two documents stored on a seized hard drive. The applicants’ suspicion that the examiner had opened those documents was fed by mismatching “hashes” (digital fingerprints) of the original forensic copy of the drive made by the examiner and a working copy given to the applicants.

To find traces of the examiner’s having opened those documents, the applicants asked the court to let their expert examine the forensic copy. The prosecution objected saying that this would give the defence an unfair advantage as the defence was effectively challenging the work of the police examiner, which should have been done earlier. By two interim decisions of September and October 2014 the court held for the prosecution and refused the applicants access to the desired copy.

On 22 December 2014 the court found Mr Souroullas guilty of money ‑ laundering and Mr Zanettos of extortion. The conviction relied mainly on L.’s uncorroborated testimony. The applicants were sentenced to 6.5 and 3.5 years’ imprisonment, respectively.

In their appeal the applicants argued, among other things, that the refusal of the forensic copy had upset the equality of arms and that their conviction was unsafe because it relied on the uncorroborated testimony of the accomplice.

On 4 July 2017 the Supreme Court upheld the sentence. It held that the defence had seen all the prosecution evidence, that by working on the forensic copy the defence expert could compromise its integrity, and that the defence could have challenged the examiner earlier in the trial. It also held that the Assize Court had relied on L.’s testimony with due caution and good reason.

COMPLAINTS

1. Relying on Article 6 and Article 6 § 3 (b) of the Convention, the applicants complain that by refusing them access to the forensic copy of the drive the courts deprived them of an instrument for their defence and thus gave the prosecution an unfair advantage.

2. Relying on Article 6 § 1 the applicants complain that the trial was unfair because their conviction relied on the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice who had been granted immunity from prosecution.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Were the applicants afforded adequate facilities for the preparation of their defence, as required by Article 6 § 3 (b) of the Convention (see Natunen v. Finland (no. 21022/04, § 43, 31 March 2009)?

2. Did the applicants have a fair hearing in the determination of the criminal charges against them, in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention? In particular, can a hearing be qualified as fair if it results in a conviction which relies on:

2.1. uncorroborated testimony of a single witness (see L.N. v. the Netherlands (dec.), no. 39024/97, 9 November 1999);

2.2. uncorroborated testimony of a single accomplice witness; or

2.3. uncorroborated testimony of a single accomplice witness who has been granted immunity from prosecution (see Adamčo v. Slovakia , no. 45084/14, §§ 53–71, 12 November 2019)?