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Cyprus ex-leader's corpse is stolen
Source: Agencies |
December 12, 2009, Saturday
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GRAVE robbers have dug up the coffin of former Cyprus President Tassos Papadopoulos and stolen his corpse, police said yesterday.
Mounds of fresh earth lay at the site of the robbery in the Deftera village cemetery in a southwestern suburb of the Cypriot capital, Nicosia. Police investigators cordoned off the area and were searching the site. The motive was unclear.
Today is the first anniversary of the death of Papadopoulos, who was Cyprus' president from 2003 to 2008.
"The grave of the former president has been violated and the body robbed," said police spokesman Michalis Katsounotos.
Investigators believe the body was taken either late Thursday night or early yesterday morning. Grave-robbing is rare in Cyprus.
"What happened is macabre and utterly condemnable. I am honestly still trying to comprehend what kind of warped minds could even think of doing such a thing, let alone actually carry it out. This is a perverse act that will sicken society in Cyprus," said the head of Cyprus' ruling AKEL party, Andros Kyprianou.
"It is my hope that those responsible will be caught and made an example of. Society needs to remain calm," he added.
Kypros Chrysostomides, who served as justice minister under Papadopoulos, also expressed outrage.
"I totally condemn, with all my soul, this barbarous act of sacrilege," he said. "I cannot understand why somebody would want to do such a thing. ... Such barbarous acts only do damage to Cyprus."
Papadopoulos, a hardline president who ushered the ethnically divided island into the European Union, died from lung cancer at age 74.
(Agencies)
Mounds of fresh earth lay at the site of the robbery in the Deftera village cemetery in a southwestern suburb of the Cypriot capital, Nicosia. Police investigators cordoned off the area and were searching the site. The motive was unclear.
Today is the first anniversary of the death of Papadopoulos, who was Cyprus' president from 2003 to 2008.
"The grave of the former president has been violated and the body robbed," said police spokesman Michalis Katsounotos.
Investigators believe the body was taken either late Thursday night or early yesterday morning. Grave-robbing is rare in Cyprus.
"What happened is macabre and utterly condemnable. I am honestly still trying to comprehend what kind of warped minds could even think of doing such a thing, let alone actually carry it out. This is a perverse act that will sicken society in Cyprus," said the head of Cyprus' ruling AKEL party, Andros Kyprianou.
"It is my hope that those responsible will be caught and made an example of. Society needs to remain calm," he added.
Kypros Chrysostomides, who served as justice minister under Papadopoulos, also expressed outrage.
"I totally condemn, with all my soul, this barbarous act of sacrilege," he said. "I cannot understand why somebody would want to do such a thing. ... Such barbarous acts only do damage to Cyprus."
Papadopoulos, a hardline president who ushered the ethnically divided island into the European Union, died from lung cancer at age 74.
(Agencies)
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