‘Negligent, careless’ Christofias is blamed for Cyprus base blast

His “negligence and carelessness” was primarily to blame for the explosion of a large cache of confiscated Syrian-bound, Iranian munitions that killed 13 people in July, a state-appointed investigator said.

Polys Polyviou, a British-trained lawyer, told a news conference that Mr Christofias bore a “serious, and very heavy personal responsibility” for the blast at the Evangelos Florakis naval base at Mari on the island’s southern coast.

However, the Cypriot president last night vehemently denied any personal responsibility and proclaimed that Mr Polyviou – who was appointed by his own government – had exceeded his mandate and failed to provide evidence to support his accusations in a damning 643-page report.

Cyprus reluctantly seized the explosives from a Cypriot-flagged vessel in February 2009 after the United Nations said the consignment contravened a ban on Iranian arms shipments.

Both Tehran and Damascus had pressured the small Mediterranean island not to seize the munitions and, once it had, not to destroy them.

With disastrous results, Mr Christofias, the European Union’s only communist leader, had tried to placate Damascus and Tehran while attempting to meet the demands of the United States and other Western powers.

It was a risky diplomatic game which left Cyprus with no room to manoeuvre, the inquiry, headed by solely by Mr Polyviou, found.

For two-and-a-half years, 98 containers of Iranian gunpowder and nitroglycerine were left exposed to wide temperature swings in an open field just 150 yards from Cyprus’s main power station.

The blast crippled the Vassilikos plant – which met more than half the island’s electricity needs – deepened economic woes and fanned speculation that Cyprus would require a bail-out from the European Union. The spokesman for Cyprus’s main opposition Democratic Rally Party, Haris Georgiades, said: “He [Mr Christofias] should resign and assume his responsibilities … or call early elections immediately and ask for a vote of confidence.”

Mr Polyviou’s conclusions are non-binding, and Mr Christofias, who was elected with a five-year mandate in 2008, enjoys immunity from prosecution.

But the Cypriot president, a thin-skinned politician who portrays himself as a man of the people and is not used to being unpopular, will have been dismayed by the investigation’s unsparing conclusions.

Mr Polyviou accused him of “unforgivable negligence” for allowing the munitions to be stored out in the open and not taking steps to avert the risks despite repeated warnings.

“It was a time bomb left at the naval base until it exploded,” Mr Polyviou told a press conference that was relayed on television.

“The president of the republic … failed to take elementary measures for the security of Cyprus’s citizens,” he said.

Appearing voluntarily before the inquiry last month, Mr Christofias said he was kept in the dark by his ministers and aides about signs that storage of the munitions had become dangerous in the July heat.