Tales from the Coffeeshop: Killing two ambelopoulia with one stone

EVERYONE is wondering how the allegations about Paphos mayor Phedonas Phedonos beating his wife back in 2017 became big news in 2026?

The allegations were first made on social media by the Russia-based conspiracy theorist and crackpot Annie Alexoui, who has been claiming she has inside information about organised crime and its links to police officers she named.

Police took the allegations against Phed very seriously, despite having issued 13 arrest warrants against Alexoui for spreading fake news and for harassment and ordered an investigation. The police spokesman admitted that the source of the information was the internet, but because the allegations related to family violence, it had to be investigated.

So, if I start circulating information on the internet that I was beaten up by my wife with a baseball bat, would the police initiate an ex officio investigation? Or do I have to qualify as an unreliable witness, wanted for spreading fake news, before my allegations are taken seriously and an investigation is ordered? 

REALISING the blunder of their decision, we were subsequently informed by Phil, which has been leading the character assassination campaign against Phed, that medical reports were available from the time when Mrs Phed had gone to the Nicosia general hospital for treatment of her wounds.

On the report, it was claimed, there was a handwritten note blaming the husband, but the zealous cops were trying to establish the authenticity of the reports. Usually a patient cannot find a medical report at the hospital from six months ago, but in the case of Ms Phed they found a report from nine years ago in record time. It was reportedly provided by Alexoui, who has access to these documents in Moscow.

Meanwhile, former chief of police Kypros Michaelides told Sigma TV that a preliminary investigation of the allegations was made by police in 2018-2019, but they failed to secure adequate evidence. The file was forwarded to the legal services which gave instructions to stop the investigation because there was no evidence, said Michaelides.

APART from the handwritten reference to Phed on the medical report, which could have been added later, the cops have nothing to build a case on. Mrs Phed issued a statement categorically stating she never filed a complaint to police against her hubby and pointed out that she was still with Phed with whom she had been happily married for 20 years.

So if the alleged victim denies she had been beaten up, and there are no witnesses who saw the alleged beating, how will the cops build a case against the mayor? Will they bring Annie Alexoui over from Russia as their key witness and then after the trial arrest her for spreading fake news?

Mrs Phed urged the cops to stop the investigation a couple of days ago, but I suspect this will not happen with Phil showing such a keen interest in the case. The paper even contacted the interior minister to ask whether he would suspend the mayor from his post, as the law has such a provision for a mayor under investigation.

It is payback time, as Phed had spoken unflatteringly in the past about the business activities of Phil’s new owner.  

A SKETTOS drinker at our establishment is convinced that the presidential palace might also have had a hand in the attempt to destroy Phed’s political career.

He argued that by throwing Phed to the social media savages, the presidential palace was killing two ambelopoulia with one stone. First, public attention would be diverted away from Videogate and the unrelentingly negative press the Prez and his Missus have been getting for the past three weeks.

If this also destroyed the political career of Phed, it would be one less credible rival for the Prez to worry about when he seeks re-election. The mayor has presidential ambitions, has already started building up his contacts and he could be the Disy candidate in 2028. But what chance would a suspected wife-beater have against the churchgoing, family man?

I COULD not believe that the legal service issued an opinion asserting that disclosure of the names of companies that contributed money to the independent social support body would be a violation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

This opinion enabled the treasury to refuse to give the names to the legislature, which wanted to know who had contributed the €6.4 million raised since Mrs PCK took it over in 2023. The “absolute transparency” that Mrs Philippa claimed to have marked its operation was thus safeguarded.

Had the presidential palace ordered the legal service to issue such a ridiculous opinion because it has something to hide? I was under the impression that GDPR was for protecting individuals and did not apply to businesses that give money to a government fund expecting favours from the government in exchange.

Then again, I am no lawyer, but you do not have to be a lawyer to realise that the government does not want its dirty dealings out in the open, despite Mrs PCK’s commitment to absolute transparency.

HEARING about the passing of a former president of the supreme court Giorgos Pikis, at the ripe old age of 87, I was reminded of the shameful way in which he treated the late, great Alecos Constantinides when he sought justice.

My good friend Alecos, as editor and columnist of Alithia, made a career of kicking against the pricks and mocking our politicians, by regularly focusing on their stupidity. Back in the nineties, one of the bash-patriotic columnists of Phil, Yiannis Sertis, referred to Alecos as a “Turkish agent” and Alecos was urged by a lawyer friend sue for libel.

The judge at Nicosia district court – another graduate of bash-patriotic school of idiots – ruled that there was no libel because the use of the word ‘agent’ was not in itself defamatory. It could have referred to a travel agent, a shipping agent or a betting agent, he argued, advertising his bias and low intelligence.

Alecos decided to appeal against this monumentally stupid court decision to the supreme court, the president of which was Pikis. In an absurd decision, Pikis informed Alecos that the supreme court would not look at his appeal, because he had insulted Cyprus justice in the past. This, according to the learned judge, barred Alecos from using the justice system.

JUDGE PIKIS informed Alecos that he would hear his appeal only if Alecos restored the name and prestige of the Cyprus justice system, not realising that his absurd behaviour did much more harm to the prestige of the justice system.

Alecos may have shown disrespect for the justice system in the past, especially during the Spy Kyp presidency when the courts were used as an arm of the executive, but this was a democratic country in which free speech was still permitted.

The appeal was never heard because Alecos’ efforts to restore the prestige and good name of the justice system (as if it were possible for an individual to do this) never satisfied the self-righteous Pikis. In fact Alecos had great fun with Pikis’ decision.

Every so often he would write in his column that “Cyprus justice is the best in the world,” or “the Cyprus justice system is wonderful, triple A standard,” in the hope that his appeal might then be heard, but it never was, because Pikis believed in extra-judicial punishment by banning access to the law of disrespectful hacks.

THE SPEECH in English given by Prez Nik to Eurochambres Presidency meeting in Nicosia on Thursday, was a good illustration of how not to translate platitudes. Here are a few examples:

“An extrovert member state, that stands proudly at the crossroads. As the Union’s lighthouse in the Eastern Mediterranean and the greater Middle East. A country that has consistently acted as a bridge between Europe and this geostrategically vital region. An enabler of security and stability….

“This is a moment we have been preparing diligently, with ambition. The Cyprus Presidency is a responsibility and an honour that we undertake with deep sense of duty and ambition, with a single, central aim: to deliver for Europe and for its citizens.”

Our extrovert member state is an enabler of security and stability, indeed.