President: Saudi allegations are an overhaul of already discredited claims

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The presidential office on Tuesday again denied allegations of improper relations between President Nicos Anastasiades and a Saudi businessman whose wives obtained a Cypriot passport through the citizenship by investment program.

He was responding to a new report released by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which essentially summarized information already publicly disclosed.

The OCCRP report referred to Saudi businessman Abdulrahman bin Khalid bin Mahfouz, whose jet Anastasiades used twice to fly to Seychelles.

Saudi Arabia’s second wife obtained a Cypriot passport in August 2015, and just days after Anastasiades traveled to Seychelles on the jet, a trip for which Anastasiades said she paid out of pocket.

The information was revealed during Anastasiades’ sworn testimony before a commission of inquiry to examine the passport program that the government rejected in October 2020 following a denunciation by the Qatar-based al Jazeera network. .

In its statement, the presidential office said the OCCRP report only rehashed issues that have already been addressed by the commission of inquiry and by a panel chaired by the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“The conclusions of these two committees refute the report and raise questions as to the purpose of the report at this time,” we read.

The statement pointed out that, as the OCCRP itself states, “there is no evidence linking the president to the Saudi transactions.”

Weighing in on the revelations of a new al Jazeera documentary, released only on Monday, the presidential office said these “simply refer to acts or actions attributed to deficiencies, gaps or omissions in due diligence at the within the investment program, which has been definitively abolished.

The statement recalled that following Al Jazeera’s revelations, the government took action by appointing a commission of inquiry, the findings of which led to revocations of citizenship granted under the passport regime.

And the attorney general has meanwhile launched a prosecution in this case.

“The Presidency of the Republic assures its determination to tackle the problems posed by the investment program which has now been abolished”, the press release concluded.

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