The Supreme Court last Wednesday dismissed an application filed by the former abbot of the Holy Monastery of Avvakoum, Archimandrite Nektarios, through his lawyer Efstathios Efstathiou, seeking to have the retention and, by extension, the use of evidence obtained from the monastery declared unlawful in the criminal case against him.
Archimandrite Nektarios had sought the exclusion of evidentiary material obtained from three electronic devices containing data and videos from the monastery’s closed-circuit surveillance system. The devices included the DVR of the CCTV system, listed as exhibit 1, from which recorded data were extracted onto a hard drive and later handed to the investigative team.
Why the application was rejected
The court rejected the application, adopting the position of the Legal Service, as presented by Senior Counsel of the Republic V. Bissa and trainee lawyer V. Tsaousi. The Republic argued that, since the disputed exhibits had been handed over voluntarily, they could be retained without the need for a court order.
The criminal case
According to the court decision, issued on 20 May, the events unfolded as follows.
On 8 March 2024, the Bishop of Tamasos and Orinis, Isaias Kykkotis, filed a complaint alleging the commission of financial offences by the applicant, who at the time was abbot of the Monastery of Saint Avvakoum.
The complainant said the matter came to his attention after he was informed by a member of the monastery’s brotherhood, Archimandrite Varnavas, who had access to the monastery’s CCTV system. According to the court decision, the audiovisual surveillance system had been installed at various points in the monastery with the knowledge of the applicant and the other members of the brotherhood, all of whom had access to it.
Following continued monitoring, on the instructions of the Bishop, it was decided that ecclesiastical investigations would be carried out under the Charter of the Church of Cyprus.
As part of those investigations, movable property was taken from the monastery on 5 March 2024, including the CCTV recording device, which was transferred to the Bishopric of Tamasos.
On 9 March 2024, the monks of the monastery, including the applicant, filed a complaint against the Bishop and other individuals over various alleged criminal offences said to have taken place between 5 and 6 March 2024. These included offences relating to alleged breaches of Law 125(I)/2018 on the protection of personal data.
A special police team was set up to investigate the complaints.
During the investigation into the alleged offences, Archimandrite Varnavas voluntarily handed over three electronic devices to police. The devices contained data and videos with audiovisual material from the monastery’s CCTV system.
The recording device of the surveillance system, exhibit 1, was handed over and data were extracted from it onto a hard drive, which was given to the investigative team. Police also copied data from the electronic devices onto an external hard drive, listed as exhibit 2.
During examination of the data at the Digital Evidence Forensic Laboratory, recordings containing audiovisual material were found, mainly from internal cameras in the applicant’s office, where he held meetings with various people.
According to the court decision, the material also includes confessions, while some of the people appearing in the videos confirmed that they had met with the applicant.
The two hard drives were eventually handed over to the investigative team for the purposes of the investigation.
