Ewa Izabela Künzel has been in pretrial detention in the Republic of Cyprus since July 19, 2024, while her criminal trial remains unresolved.
The German real estate agent, who marketed property in the Turkish-occupied north of the island, faces 46 charges connected with developments on property in Agios Amvrosios in the Kyrenia district. They include alleged fraudulent real estate transactions, unlawful possession and use of property without the owners’ consent, and money laundering.
Künzel denies the charges.
Her trial began in March 2025. In a September 15, 2026 ruling, the Cyprus Court of Appeal rejected another challenge to her continued detention. She had been held for 26 months by then.
Her lawyers argued that repeated prosecution requests for adjournments meant Künzel was bearing the cost through continued detention. They also argued that the length of her confinement had become oppressive and violated her constitutional and human rights.
The appellate court rejected those arguments. It noted that her detention had originally been ordered because of a risk of flight and that the latest adjournment followed medical leave taken by prosecution counsel. The court said the additional delay did not make her detention excessive, while also acknowledging that courts must continue to scrutinize its length.
Künzel’s case was the focus of an October 2 report by Germany’s Handelsblatt. It is also part of a series of criminal and cross-border cases involving property in northern Cyprus.
The underlying dispute reaches back to 1974, when Greek Cypriots were displaced from northern Cyprus during the Turkish invasion. The self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, recognized only by Turkey, later developed its own system of property titles and transfers. The Republic of Cyprus continues to recognize ownership recorded in its land registry, while homes and land in the north have for decades been sold and marketed to foreign buyers.
Property cases move beyond Cyprus
On May 9, 2025, a Nicosia court sentenced two Hungarian women to 2½ years and 15 months in prison over the advertising and promotion of homes on Greek Cypriot-owned land. According to the Cyprus Foreign Ministry, the houses had been built without the registered owners’ consent.
On October 24, 2025, developer Simon Aykut was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to 40 charges connected with the development and sale of Greek Cypriot property in the north. The court heard that his Afik Group had been involved in six residential and tourist complexes built on nearly 395,000 square meters of land belonging to displaced Greek Cypriots without their consent. Cyprus Mail reported that the land had a combined market value of more than €36 million.
By December 2025, the Cyprus Foreign Ministry said police were actively investigating numerous complaints involving similar property transactions.
The cases have also reached courts elsewhere in Europe.
A Lithuanian national arrested in France on May 16, 2026, challenged a European arrest warrant issued by Cyprus over alleged fraudulent transactions involving Greek Cypriot property in the occupied areas. The Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal approved her surrender on July 1.
On August 12, France’s Court of Cassation rejected her appeal, leaving the surrender order in place. The court held that the suspension of EU law in areas where the Republic of Cyprus does not exercise effective control did not prevent execution of a European arrest warrant concerning alleged property offences there.
What the criminal law covers
Article 303A of the Cyprus Criminal Code makes fraudulent dealing in another person’s immovable property a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison.
Its wording is broader than selling or developing property. The law covers selling, leasing, mortgaging, advertising or promoting property, entering into agreements concerning it and accepting property that is the subject of such a transaction.
That last provision means the statute can, in principle, reach a buyer as well as a developer, broker or advertiser.
The law does not make every purchase in northern Cyprus a criminal offence. It defines fraudulent intent as acting while knowing, or in the circumstances reasonably being expected to know, that the registered owner or another person legally entitled to consent had not approved the transaction.
The prosecutions and convictions documented here have involved people engaged in development, brokerage or promotion. They do not establish that an ordinary foreign purchaser with no such commercial role will automatically face criminal charges. But the statutory language itself is not limited to commercial intermediaries.
The law also reaches conduct outside Cyprus. A 2006 amendment extended the Criminal Code to offences committed abroad when an element of the offence concerns immovable property in the Republic.
Germany has responded with an unusually direct warning. In guidance updated on August 10, the German Foreign Office says the acquisition, trade, advertising, and brokerage of property can carry substantial legal and financial risks, particularly in northern Cyprus because ownership may be unresolved. It warns that those involved can face criminal prosecution by the Republic of Cyprus, including lengthy pretrial detention.
Künzel’s own prosecution has also tested the limits on how those investigations are conducted.
On October 8, 2025, the Nicosia criminal court ruled that police had violated her constitutional rights when searching her luggage and seizing her phone, hard drive and documents. The court excluded that evidence after finding problems with the legal basis for the seizures and with the purported consent given for the search, according to Cyprus Mail.
The prosecution continued with other material. On May 15, 2026, the court rejected a defense challenge to European Investigation Orders used to obtain evidence from German authorities, finding that the orders had been lawfully issued. Cyprus Mail reported that the evidence could remain part of the case.
No verdict has been reached, and the allegations against Künzel remain unproven.
The civil and ECHR routes
For purchasers, the clearest established cross-border precedent is civil.
British couple David and Linda Orams bought land at Lapithos in northern Cyprus and built a villa and swimming pool there. Greek Cypriot refugee Meletios Apostolides maintained that the property belonged to him.
A court in the Republic of Cyprus ruled in Apostolides’ favor. On April 28, 2009, the European Court of Justice ruled in Apostolides v. Orams that a Cypriot judgment could be recognized and enforced in another EU member state even though it concerned land in an area where the Republic does not exercise effective control.
The case then returned to Britain. On January 19, 2010, the England and Wales Court of Appeal ruled that the Cypriot judgments were enforceable in England. Those judgments required the Oramses to demolish the villa, swimming pool, and fencing, return possession of the land to Apostolides, and pay damages and costs.
The case established that a transaction recognized by authorities in the north does not necessarily prevent a registered owner from obtaining a judgment in the Republic of Cyprus and seeking its enforcement elsewhere in the European Union.
Property owners also have another legal route.
In its 2010 decision in Demopoulos and Others v. Turkey, the European Court of Human Rights found that the Immovable Property Commission operating in northern Cyprus offered an accessible and effective framework through which Greek Cypriot owners could seek restitution, exchange or compensation before bringing certain property complaints to Strasbourg.
The decision did not recognize the northern entity as a state. The court said using the commission did not call into question the international position that the Republic of Cyprus remains the island’s sole legitimate government, nor did it amount to legitimizing the authorities in the north.
The commission’s handling of individual claims can still be challenged. On June 10, 2025, the European Court of Human Rights found in K.V. Mediterranean Tours Ltd v. Türkiye that one claim had not been handled coherently, diligently, and quickly enough. The court found a violation of the company’s property rights, while not rejecting the commission as a remedy in general.
For Greek Cypriot families displaced in 1974, the cases concern homes, fields and other property they were forced to leave behind. Foreign purchasers face a different set of risks: a title recognized in the north can still be challenged by an owner recognized by the Republic of Cyprus, while the statutory language also exposes some participants in disputed transactions to possible criminal proceedings.
More than 52 years after the Turkish invasion, those competing property claims are being argued not only in Cyprus but in criminal, extradition and civil proceedings across Europe.