Appeals court upholds eight-year prison sentence for drug possession

On September 22, 2026, the Cyprus Court of Appeal upheld an eight-year prison sentence for a man convicted of possessing 8.4 kilograms of cannabis with the intent to supply. The defendant had previously been found guilty by the Assize Court on charges of illegal possession and intent to supply the specified quantity of narcotics.

The central issue in the appeal concerned whether the conviction could be sustained through circumstantial evidence after the testimony of a co-defendant was deemed unreliable by the lower court. The Court of Appeal ruled that the trial court acted correctly by dismissing the co-defendant’s testimony while relying on other sufficient, admissible evidence. The appellate judges determined that the unreliability of one witness did not invalidate the overall verdict. Evidence presented during the initial proceedings noted that police had observed the defendant carrying a large sports bag into a temporary structure and leaving it in a storage area, which contributed to the factual basis of the case.