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Law Office released final report of Naturalisations' Committee

23/06/2021 09:25

Cyprus` Law Office on Tuesday released the final report of the Inquire Committee for naturalisations which was appointed to look into the exceptional  naturalisations granted to foreign businessmen and investors from 2007 to August 17, 2020.

The 786-page report which is redacted according to the law and for the protection of public interest as agreed with the Committee, suggests the revoking of the citizenships granted to a number of foreign nationals. Moreover, it urges authorities to investigate the possible commission of criminal offences, including making false declarations.

The Law Office in a statement says that it had to necessarily blank out certain information and names for reasons related to public interest and points out that revealing certain names and details would jeopardise investigations. It also says that the report is being evaluated by a state prosecutor and the aim is to forward it to the Police for criminal investigations.

The Committee examined a total of 6,182 naturalisations dubbed law risk and 597 high risk, amounted to 8.8% of the total number of naturalisations.

In the report the Committee says that from the dossiers of 280 investors (597 naturalisations of high risk investors and their spouses who were granted Cypriot citizenship),  81 persons were given naturalisations as having managerial positions and therefore out of the legal framework.

For the rest of the invertors/businessmen the Committee recommends to have the citizenships revoked based on the provisions of certain laws of the Republic of Cyprus.

According to the figures in the report, 5 citizenships were granted between 1.1.2007– 29.2.2008 during Tassos Papadopoulos` tenure, 228 during Demetris Christofias` tenure (1.3.2008 – 28.2.2013) and 6,546 during Nicos Anastasiades` tenure (1.3.2013 – 17.8.2020).

The findings of the report say that from a total of  6,779 persons naturalised , 53,24% (members of family of the investor and officials holding managerial positions namely 3,609 persons, were granted citizenship out of legal framework. Moreover, from the 3,170 persons who were given citizenships according to the legal framework, the 67 were not examined because the dossiers are being examined by the Police. From the remaining 3,103 persons, 33,58% do not meet all the typical criteria at the time of the examination of the applications.

From the high-risk investors, 27,64% of 199 such investors did not meet the criteria set by the Cabinet. From the low risk investors 66,01% of 2,904 such investors during the 2007-2020 period met the criteria whereas 33,99% did not. A percentage of 12,1% did not meet the criteria of owing a private property.