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Cyprus Mail
Remains found in Tseri grave are those of Papadopoulos
by George Psyllides
9 Mar 2010 at 3:52am
Author:
George Psyllides
POLICE on Tuesday confirmed that the remains they found in a Nicosia cemetery on Monday night were those of former president Tassos Papadopoulos.
“A body was located in a cemetery in Nicosia, which, based on all indications so far, possibly belongs to former president Tassos Papadopoulos,” police spokesman Michalis Katsounotos said on Monday night.
On Tuesday morning he confirmed. "There has been a DNA identification and the body indeed belongs to the former president," he added.
The identification process was carried out at the Cyprus Institute of Genetics and Neurology,
The body was discovered after a tip-off at a cemetery near Tseri, not too far from where he was originally buried in Deftera.
No more official information was immediately available though reports said the remains had been buried in an existing grave. CyBC said police were investigating the possibility the corpse had been transferred to the new cemetery in the past few days.
Police were also examining a phone box in the area, believed to be the one used to notify the authorities.
Police scoured the cemetery for clues while family members and close aides visited the scene.
Papadopoulos’ daughter Anastasia, his son Nicolas and wife Yiota and stepson Constantinos were seen leaving the cemetery visibly distraught.
Television stations interrupted regular programming to announce the news and show footage of the developments outside the cemetery.
Justice Ministry Permanent Secretary Andis Tryfonides said he hoped the body belonged to Papadopoulos.
“This will put an end to the unspeakable agony Papadopoulos’ family is going through,” Tryfonides said.
Papadopoulos’ remains were dug up and stolen from his grave at the Deftera cemetery on December 11, 2009 on the eve of the first anniversary of his death.
The corpse was removed in torrential rain after the culprits shifted a granite slab and dug through several feet of earth.
No mechanical equipment was used to lift the 250kg granite slab lying over the tomb, or to dig deep into the muddy grave.
On reaching the coffin, the perpetrators were able to remove the body of Papadopoulos, leaving the coffin behind.
Cyprus sought the help of Scotland Yard, the FBI, Interpol, Greece and Israeli police. Many people were questioned and various leads followed but no breakthrough emerged until last night.
The family had previously denied receiving a ransom demand in return for the remains.
The gruesome act was widely reported around the world, on all major channels and news sites.
AKEL spokesman Stavros Evagorou was quite right to highlight the hypocrisy of the political parties which expressed strong objections to the government’s distribution of a pamphlet explaining how a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation works. Surely the government has an obligation to help people understand the form of government they would have in the event of a settlement.
This should have been done a long time ago, but successive governments avoided the issue, for fear that the demagogues would exploit it. The result was that when the Annan plan appeared, most Greek Cypriots were greatly surprised by the provisions on governance, because nobody ever took the trouble to explain the workings and principles of a federal system of government.
Public ignorance suited the opponents of a federal settlement as they had a free rein to demonise it and make a big issue out of its allegedly negative provisions. The Papadopoulos government, quite disingenuously, insisted that it supported a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation “but with the right content”. It never explained what it meant by the “right content”, but this trick allowed it to reject any proposal in the future, for having the “wrong content”.
This state of affairs perfectly suits the opponents of a settlement, as they could carry on demonising a federal settlement. For instance, parties like DIKO and EDEK, which spoke out against the pamphlet, are officially in favour of a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation so we can only deduce they do not want the public to know what type of settlement they support. How can they carry on slamming the peace process and President Christofias’ alleged concessions, when it becomes obvious that he is negotiating a federal system of government, which they supposedly support?
Insisting that people were kept in the dark so the hard-line demagogues were left free to mislead and peddle fear is grossly cynical. It is also hypocritical, as Evagorou pointed out yesterday, because none of the critics of the pamphlet objected to the anti-settlement leaflets being distributed through newspapers, on a weekly basis, by the Archbishopric. These leaflets crudely cultivate and encourage opposition to any compromise deal, by making demands and setting conditions that the Turkish side would never accept.
But nobody objects to or sees anything wrong with the Archbishopric spending hundreds of thousands of euros (it has also paid for the publication of anti-settlement books) poisoning the climate and turning people against re-unification. For DIKO, EDEK and EUROKO, it is perfectly legitimate for the Church to use its resources to disseminate anti-settlement propaganda, but it is unacceptable for the government to try enlighten people about a settlement in an objective and detached way.
It says a lot about our democracy when political parties take a position in favour of keeping people in the dark.
THE island’s top lawyer suggested yesterday that the European Court of Human Rights decision to recognise the property commission in the occupied north was politically motivated.
And the large number of property claims submitted to the ECHR by Greek Cypriot refugees contributed to the negative decision, Attorney-general Petros Clerides said.
“The decision, in my opinion, has a clear political feel that is incompatible with what we were used to from the court,” Clerides told reporters.
The ECHR on Friday issued a decision recognising the Immovable Property Commission (IPC) in the occupied areas as an effective domestic remedy of Turkey.
Greek Cypriot refugees seeking compensation or restitution for their properties in the occupied areas will now have to exhaust all domestic remedies in the occupied areas before applying to the Strasbourg-based court.
Clerides said the ECHR decision was a negative development both from a legal and political point of view.
“It is disappointing because it is not compatible with the justice expected from the court considering the precedent,” the Attorney-general said.
Clerides said the decision made references to the Annan plan, when in fact neither side involved in the case had mentioned the UN reunification blueprint rejected by Greek Cypriots in 2004.
It also spoke about the Turkish settlers and their potential rights when “colonisation is an international war crime,” Clerides said.
He said the ECHR decision also states that Greek Cypriots left their properties in the north without mentioning that they had been forced and they desire to return.
The decision was a clear deviation from established legal principles that justice cannot be based on injustice, Clerides said, noting Turkey’s invasion and occupation of the island.
But the Attorney-general also said that the flux of cases before the ECHR had had negative consequences.
President Demetris Christofias was more straightforward on Sunday.
“We warned sometimes that, mass appeals, at the end of the day could lead to recognition of the occupying force’s committee,” he said.
“Mass appeals were wrong. I do not reprove the people; the people were led by both politicians and lawyers to make these moves,” Christofias said.
The president said they were the ones who encouraged the people to appeal en masse “because they thought we would solve the Cyprus problem through legal procedures.” Now they are trying to lay the blame elsewhere, Christofias said. “We need to have the courage to admit to mistakes.”
He said the decision would not stop the Greek Cypriot side from defending principles and the right of the real owners to have first choice in a potential solution of the Cyprus problem.
Government spokesman Stefanos Stefanou said the court should have taken into consideration the ongoing negotiations between the two sides on the island.
“Considering that we are in negotiations … the court should have been more careful and taken this fact into consideration,” Stefanou said.
Although the ECHR decision is perceived as a blow to the Greek Cypriot side and a political win for the Turkish Cypriot side, the ECHR reiterated its position that the ‘TRNC’ has no legal standing and that Turkey in terms of human rights is responsible for violations in the northern part of the island.
The IPC was set up in 2006 in response to a ruling by the ECHR that Turkey and its subordinate Turkish Cypriot administration were failing to offer an effective domestic remedy to Greek Cypriots seeking redress for properties they had lost in the north.
By November last year there were a reported 81 claims agreed through the property commission, with at least one record payment of over €22 million to two Greek Cypriot refugees.
OVER 8,000 drivers have lost their licence for various periods of time since the point system was introduced, police said yesterday.
At present, 3,313 drivers have over 10 penalty points while 8,381 have so far lost their licence for various periods of time.
“Most are under 25-years-old and this is worrying,” traffic police chief Demetris Demetriou said.
A licence is taken away when the driver reaches 12 points.
Demetriou said most penalty points had been imposed for speeding.
Points are deleted three years after the day they were imposed.
The news came after three more young people lost their lives in separate road accidents within 15 hours over the weekend.
At around 3pm on Sunday, a high-powered motorbike being ridden by 30-year-old Limassolian Linos Charalambous collided with the side of a pick-up truck in Ayia Sofia Street in Limassol. Charalambous, who was not wearing a helmet, was thrown some distance after the impact, while his bike burst into flames.
He was taken to Limassol General Hospital, where he was declared dead on arrival. The 63-year-old driver of the pick-up truck, also from Limassol, was taken to the same hospital suffering from severe shock, but was not found to have been injured.
Limassol Traffic Police are investigating the possibility that Charalambous was driving too fast to avoid the collision.
Some 11 hours earlier, at around 3.40am, a 20-year-old Latvian woman died on the Ayia Napa-Dhekelia highway near the Ormidia flyover, after being thrown from the back of a road-racing motorbike being ridden by a 25-year-old Latvian man.
In circumstances still being investigated by police, the bike’s rider appears to have lost control and hit the central traffic barrier. Police officers who arrived first on the scene said the woman was already dead. The bike’s rider was said to have suffered light injuries to his arms, and was taken to Larnaca Hospital for treatment.
Two helmets were found at the scene of the accident, but Dhekelia deputy police chief Andreas Pitsillides told reporters that “investigators are examining whether the rider and his passenger were wearing them”.
The earliest of the weekend’s road deaths occurred around 11.50pm on Saturday night. A car being driven by Angelos Nicoloau, 22, from Nicosia, veered off Griva Digenis Avenue in Engomi (Nicosia) onto some banking, and hit a tree – cutting it in two – before coming to a halt.
Nicoloau, who was wearing a seat-belt, was taken to Nicosia General Hospital, where he was declared dead.
Nicosia Traffic Police are investigating the possibility that Nicoloau suffered heart failure.
Over the weekend, police also clocked up a record speeder, a 36-year-old in Limassol driving at 209 kilometres per hour on the Limassol-Nicosia highway. Another driver, a 50-year-old was caught driving 177kph on the stretch of highway between Larnaca and Kofinou. A third man, a 40-year-old was named driving at 160 on the Nicosia-Limassol highway. All three were arrested and face court.
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) is ready to invest a record €300 million in Cyprus in the current year, some 50 per cent more than in 2009, EIB Vice-President Plutarchos Sakellaris said yesterday.
Sakellaris said that following discussions with Finance Minister Charilaos Stavrakis, the EIB will seek to build on last year’s record investment of €202 million, not only in the form of cheap lending to banks but also through the direct financing of infrastructure projects such as the municipality sewage systems.
Referring to the 37 per cent increase in the EIB’s total loans in 2009 – a record €79 billion, compared to €58 billion in 2008 – Sakellaris said: “In 2009 we reached an unprecedented lending volume, as far as our general activity is concerned, as well as our financing in Cyprus. Our lending in Cyprus in 2009 was double than the average annual total over the last four years. It was also pioneering in opening up new lending possibilities.”
Speaking at a press conference on the EIB’s 2009 results held at the Finance Ministry, Sakellaris pointed out that as well as a total of €138 million in matching funds offered to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Cyprus via the island’s three biggest banks – Bank of Cyprus, Marfin Popular Bank and Hellenic Bank – the EIB had also directly funded the Orites wind farm near Paphos to the tune of €64 million, covering the project’s design, construction and operation.
The foundation stone for the Orites wind farm, the island’s first significant renewable energy project, was laid in early October last year. The project includes 41 wind turbines designed to produce 82MW of electricity, and forms part of the Cyprus government’s commitment to the EU to increase energy production from renewable sources to 13 per cent by 2020.
Sakellaris said that “financing the Orites project was one of the innovative transactions that led the magazine Euromoney to award the EIB the title of ‘Lender of the Year’”.
The EIB’s €138 million financing for SMEs – matched by the three local banks, and therefore totalling €276 million in offered loans – was made available last July to support the real economy and help counteract the impact of the crisis, through investments in the fields of industry, tourism, services, knowledge economy, energy and environmental protection in Cyprus.
The total EIB financing covered by the three agreements signed in July came to €228 million – matched to provide a maximum loan-fund of €456 – but this was available to the three banks’ SME customers in both Greece and Cyprus.
Sakellaris said that although the banks had not yet provided full details of loans extended to SMEs in Cyprus, he believed that most of the available financing had been lent on after being drawn down by the banks. He added that a procedure was in place from the outset to monitor the three banks’ compliance with their commitment to match the EIB funds in the form of low interest loans.
Continuing its focus on supporting SMEs, the EIB signed a €50 million agreement yesterday with the Co-operative Central Bank, which will result in a further €100 million being made available in the form of cheap long-term loans. The agreement was signed by Sakellaris and Co-op Central bank General Manager Erotokritos Chlorakiotis, in the presence of Finance Minister Charilaos Stavrakis.
AMID news that crude oil hit an eight-week high above $82 a barrel, near its highest this year, the government said yesterday it was fast-tracking a bill enabling it to cap wholesale fuel prices.
The Consumers Association meanwhile urged the government to come clean on whether price controls for essential goods were possible or not, following press reports that a legal relic from the 1960s allowed for price caps.
At the moment the government can only set a ceiling on the retail price of fuel and gas. The hole in the law was laid bare recently when oil companies selling directly to the consumer did not comply with a price ceiling as they were not obliged to.
“The bill is ready and will be put to the Cabinet as soon as possible, perhaps even today,” Commerce Minister Antonis Paschalides told newsmen.
Paschalides reiterated he would not hesitate to order a new cap for fuel prices, especially as new supplies were expected to be significantly more expensive.
Nevertheless, it was not possible for the government to preemptively enforce a new cap on a hunch, Pachalides said.
“After the ships arrive, and after the fuel is delivered to the companies…and then to the petrol stations, only then can merchants raise their prices. And that takes a while.”
At any rate, no new shipments were expected over the next couple of days at least, he added.
Responding to a journalist’s observation that gas stations tend to bump up their prices on the same day as new shipments arrive, Pachalides said not all outlets behaved in this way.
Paschalides was taken to task over a report in yesterday’s Politis, claiming inaction on the part of his ministry despite legal advice given a year ago that it could temporarily regulate prices of essential goods.
According to the report, in February 2009 the Attorney-general’s office advised the Commerce Ministry that price caps do not in fact contradict EU law, provided however that certain conditions are met.
The government has in the past brushed aside calls for price caps for goods such as bread and milk, on the pretext that this would violate EU competition laws.
But citing the AG, the Politis story noted that an EU member-state can intervene in the market if the concept of fair pricing is not guaranteed by free market conditions – that is, if authorities establish profiteering,
In brief, the AG’s office advised that price caps (or alternatively profit margins) may be set only if these are in the public interest. In this, the AG cited a ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Communities.
One caveat is that a price ceiling must not benefit local products over imports. Because of transportation costs, a price cap may cause imported goods to become unprofitable to sell.
Moreover, again according to Politis, the AG advised the Commerce Ministry that it could activate two laws – dating from the 1960s – allowing for caps for both retail and wholesale prices.
Under these ‘emergency laws’, the government has the power to set caps for either wholesale or retail prices of certain goods, provided that beforehand the relevant authorities – the Commerce Ministry – declare these goods as being ‘under probation’.
At the same time, the AG recommended that these two laws be amended so that they do not clash with the EU acquis. Although the EU allows for market intervention in rare cases, it specifies certain conditions and procedures that must be followed before a price cap may be set.
For this reason, the AG advised that these laws be updated, otherwise the government would find it hard to justify a price cap if an aggrieved party took recourse to the Court of Justice of the European Communities.
Asked to comment on the above, Commerce Minister Paschalides told newsmen yesterday that either his ministry or the AG’s office would be issuing a statement within the day explaining the law. At press time no statements had been released.
A 20-YEAR-OLD man was yesterday jailed for six years after he was found guilty of robbing over €200,000 from a Nicosia district Co-operative bank in January last year.
Nicosia Assize Court president judge Harris Solomonides said the case was one of the most serious of its kind and expressed concern at the defendant’s young age and the rising number of crimes of a similar nature in today’s society.
“The severity of the sentences is a way and a measure to act oppressively and catalytically, and to give society and every aspiring offender the appropriate messages,” Solomonides said.
The break-in at the Strovolos Co-op bank took place sometime between January 27 and 28, 2009. The 20-year-old, along with a suspected number of accomplices, who to this day he has never named, broke into the bank through a window after disarming the security system. Once in the bank, the assailants cut the smoke detector’s wires and moved the direction of the CCTV camera after removing part of it and placing it in the manager’s office. The assailants also removed a motion detector device before finally breaking into the bank’s vault and stealing €264,255.75 worth of cash in euros, dollars and sterling. To this day the money had never been recovered.
Solomonides said the fact that so much planning had gone into executing the crime went against the defendant, as did the fact that he had played a significant role in its execution.
“He was part of a criminal team that executed a well planned and studied crime which resulted in the loss of a rather large income which of course its lawful owners have been deprived of,” the judge said.
Solomonides expressed the court’s doubt that the young man had not received his share of the takings following the crime on the grounds that he had had sufficient time to do so.
The judge also said the 20-year-old’s claims that he had not named his accomplices for fear they would harm him or his family was implausible because such a claim had never been made to police and was only mentioned in court a year after the crime had been committed.
Throughout the reading of his sentencing the 20-year-old stood straight backed, his eyes fixed at the panel of three judges. His mother, grandmother and sister sat anxiously awaiting the judges’ verdict.
The picture that emerged regarding his life was a sad one. The child of a broken home since the age of two, the young man had become the major breadwinner of his family in his teens, sometimes working two jobs, because his mother and younger sister were unable to work due to serious health problems. Trained as a plumber, the court said the 20-year-old had superficial relations with his father and that at the time of the offence he had lived with his 18-year-old sister in Ayios Dhometios. The court also said the young man was engaged to a 19-year-old woman who still lived with her parents.
The defendant looked shocked at the verdict and kept muttering “six years” as he was led from the courtroom, his tearful family behind him.
LESS THAN one in ten women in Cyprus hold top positions in business and government, according to figures released yesterday to mark Women’s Day today.
Women are still not present at the centres of decision-making power, something which is a fundamental problem in Cyprus, Justice Minister Loucas Louca said, repeating a theme heard often throughout the day from various quarters.
“The aim of equality of participation of the two sexes in the social life and workings of Cyprus is still very far away,” said Lia Kallidou, the President of the Cyprus Gender Equality Observatory Board at a public debate organised jointly by the European Commission with Strovolos Municipality.
In Cyprus, 9.7 per cent of the top positions in business are held by women, although this figure drops to only 3 per cent when the largest companies are considered. In government, women occupy 8 per cent of the highest decision-making roles with 90 per cent still held by men.
According to Kallidou, women are far more likely to encounter a ‘glass ceiling’ in their career progression as society is simply not structured to allow or expect women to rise to the highest managerial and decision-making positions.
This, in turn, produces a cyclical effect whereby women are kept away from decision-making positions, which leads to them not attaining any significant influence on the agendas of society’s institutions and corporations.
“The lack of equal pay, equal opportunities and access to decision-making positions and the pressure of stereotypical roles,” combine, according to Kallidou, to help produce the exclusion of women from significant social, economic and political influence.
“Cyprus, in fact, has the worst record: only 8.2 per cent of the highest decision-making roles are occupied by women - the only single-digit figure amongst the EU members states,” said Androulla Kaminara, the Head of the European Commission’s representation in Cyprus.
Kaminara said that today the average pay gap between men and women across the EU is 17.4 per cent. In Cyprus it stands at 23.1 per cent. Italy has the lowest pay gap between the sexes with a difference of only 4.4 per cent.
Sotiroula Charalambous, the Labour Minister, saw a role for women to play in strengthening the economic recovery. “Capitalisation upon the female work dynamic can positively strengthen the labour market, ensuring better rhythms of development and contributing even to the reduction of unemployment”. Charalambous did not, however, address the problem of equality in wages which, according to a number of other authorities who held events yesterday, is a more endemic problem and harder to address.
Marina Stavrinou-Koukou, the Secretary of the Women’s Department of PEO, the Cyprus Workers’ Federation, co-organised visits to workplaces in the north of the island to commemorate Women’s Day.
“The problem which working women face are worldwide the same,” she said. Stavrinou-Koukou noted that the Christofias government has involved itself “very heavily” in securing the rights of women, such as harmonisation of the legal structure regarding pregnancy leave, mothers’ rights and childcare and has introduced a series of other measures such as full-day school and buses to and from school.
“These may not seem too important but they are very useful to enable women to enter the workplace,” said Stavrinou-Koukou.
A 35-YEAR-OLD Ukrainian woman was yesterday remanded in custody for six days in connection with pimping and trafficking at least three other Eastern European women in Nicosia and Larnaca.
The raven-haired suspect was initially indignant at her arrest but later calmed down and through her lawyer said she had no objection to being held to assist police with their investigation.
The woman was arrested in connection with a sting operation earlier last week involving a Nicosia apartment transformed into a massage parlour offering sexual services. The information that the apartment was operating as a brothel was received through a tip-off, CID officer Sophoclis Sophocleous told the court.
Police contacted a mobile number and set up an appointment with a man speaking broken Greek. A police informant then went to the specific apartment where two he paid two Ukrainian women €90 for a massage and for sexual services.
The apartment was then raided by investigators who found the money their informant had used to pay the two women as well as a third Romanian woman.
The three women told police they had come to Cyprus to work after experiencing financial hardships in their own countries.
“Through friends in Cyprus they spoke on the phone to the suspect, who lives in Cyprus permanently,” said Sophocleous.
“The suspect promised that they would come to Cyprus to work as cleaners or masseuses, but then she started to take them to different apartments in Nicosia and Larnaca where using threats and intimidation she set up meetings with male clients and forced them to perform sexual services. Every client paid €60. The complainants received €20 while the suspect got the remaining €40, the court heard.
The suspect was arrested on Sunday after the three women had been identified as victims of trafficking by the Police Headquarters’ Office of Combating of Trafficking of Human Beings.
The three women had also told police about a Syrian man, who is the suspect’s alleged boyfriend.
Last Friday the Syrian man was remanded for six days. It is thought that he helped transport women to and from apartments used as brothels in Larnaca and Nicosia. He is also believed to have collected money from the women for his girlfriend and to have delivered oils and creams to the various massage parlours where they worked. The court heard the Syrian man confirmed to authorities to have helped the suspect.
When the judge ordered the woman’s six-day remand she instructed police to give her access to medical attention. Apparently during her arrest the suspect became hysterical and tried to self-harm. She is also said to have attacked a police officer.
TURKISH Cypriots are much more concerned about the rising cost of living than they are about a solution to the Cyprus problem, a survey shows.
It would seem that Turkish Cypriots worry most about paying bills, rising unemployment and the worldwide financial crisis.
A common refrain is that wages just don't cover the price of goods in the shops – most of which have to be imported.
According to a poll on the daily Kibris newspaper, 69.9 per cent of respondents said their income is too low and that they have dip into their savings in order to cover daily living costs.
The paper estimates the monthly salary of 43.5 per cent of the respondents to be between €600- €1,200 and for 15.9 per cent it is less than €600.
Only 25 per cent of Turkish Cypriots earn between €1,500-€2,000, with only 11.2 per cent have earnings between €2,000- €4,000.
One thing both communities have in common is that most Cypriots fear price rises, with many complaining that salaries do not increase with the constant hikes in the cost of living.
The survey was conducted by the Cyprus Communal Research Centre (KADEM) and was carried out between February 19 and March 3 with some 1,786 adults aged 18 and over having been interviewed.
Meanwhile, a separate survey conducted in Turkey reveals that only 2.8 per cent of the population considers Cyprus to be among the top priorities of the issues included in Turkish foreign policy.
The survey states that 97.2 per cent of people do not think of the Cyprus problem when reference to the Turkish foreign policy is made.