Nicosia, Cyprus. Questions were raised on Tuesday over possible professional links between journalist Makarios Drousiotis’ lawyer, Leto Cariolou, and Australian lawyer Gabrielle McIntyre, who was appointed to investigate allegations made in his book.
Representation of Drousiotis
Cariolou represented Drousiotis in a libel case brought against him by Victor Papadopoulos, a former deputy government spokesman and presidential press office director under Nicos Anastasiades, who now serves as presidential press office director under President Nikos Christodoulides.
She also represented Drousiotis in the Drousiotis v Cyprus case, in which he took the Republic of Cyprus to the European Court of Human Rights in 2022 after the Supreme Court found him liable for defamation.
Reported professional background
According to Sigma Live, Cariolou had also worked as a legal officer for the United Nations’ international residual mechanism for criminal tribunals.
In that role, she worked on international criminal cases including the war crimes trials of Bosnian Serb officer Ratko Mladic, former Republika Srpska president Radovan Karadzic, and Rwandan politician Augustin Ngirabatware, who was tried for inciting the Rwandan genocide.
McIntyre’s previous roles
The website reported that McIntyre had served as head legal counsel at the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the ad hoc United Nations court established to try Mladic and Karadzic, among others, and at the international residual mechanism for criminal tribunals.
It said she had therefore also worked on the trials of Mladic, Karadzic and Ngirabatware, indicating that the two lawyers may have had some professional interaction. Ngirabatware was convicted in 2012, Karadzic in 2016, and Mladic in 2019.
Cyprus investigation and later appointment
McIntyre was appointed by transparency commissioner Harris Poyiadjis to lead the anti-corruption authority’s investigation into allegations made in Drousiotis’ book Mafia State in February 2024.
She was then appointed last year as director of the secretariat of the assembly of states parties to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the International Criminal Court. The assembly of states parties is the International Criminal Court’s oversight and legislative body.
That appointment was made a few days after Anastasiades had testified before her and her fellow investigators. On that matter, assembly of states parties president Paivi Kaukoranta said due process had been followed in allowing McIntyre to hold both that role and the role in Cyprus at the same time.