Nicosia, Cyprus. Anna Aristotelous has requested her immediate appointment to a permanent director-general post with effect from December 1, 2025, following an administrative court ruling that annulled her suspension from duty. Her lawyer submitted the request to the cabinet in a letter dated July 2, 2026.
Request following court ruling
In the letter, lawyer Christos Triantafyllides said the administrative court’s June 17, 2026 decision annulled the measure placing Aristotelous on suspension from December 5, 2025.
According to the letter, Aristotelous had accepted her appointment to the post of director-general with effect from December 1, 2025, but had not yet been assigned to a permanent position allowing her to carry out the duties provided for in the relevant service scheme.
Triantafyllides called on the cabinet to proceed immediately with her placement in the permanent post, with retroactive effect from the date of her appointment.
Cabinet decision
During an extraordinary meeting on June 22, the cabinet decided to recommend to the Public Service Commission that Aristotelous be placed on suspension again.
Background to the investigation
The investigation involving Aristotelous began in early April 2025, when police searched the home of a prison warden as part of a separate inquiry into an alleged scam involving a convict buying items from the prison canteen and reselling them to other inmates at inflated prices.
During the search, investigators seized about 300,000 pages of documents marked “confidential” and “secret,” which were believed to have been removed illegally from the prisons between November and December 2022, when Aristotelous was prison director.
