There was no violation of the right to a fair trial, says the ECHR in the Souroullas-Zannettos case v. Cyprus
The European Court of Human Rightspublished on Tuesday its decision in the case of Souroullas Kay and Zannettos v. Cyprus, ruling that there had been no violation of the right to a fair trial and the right to adequate time and facilities for the preparation of the defense.
According to today's announcement by the Court, the case concerned the conviction of the first applicant for money laundering and the second applicant for extortion in connection with a land deal.
As stated, a key part of the testimony had been the testimony of N.L., a real estate businessman and owner of the ALKI Larnaca football team, who had been granted immunity from criminal prosecution, after having given statements implicating, among others, the applicants.
It is noted that the Court found that the trial had not been compromised by the inclusion of N.L.'s testimony, as the domestic courts had been careful in treating the testimony in question, while there was other available corroboration.
It is added regarding the applicants' request to examine the copy of the hard copies records of N.L. by the prosecution to prove the collaboration, that the Court was satisfied that the national courts had heard the arguments on the matter and had rejected the request with reasoned decisions, noting that the applicants' arguments in this context were entirely hypothetical, the announcement concludes.
