The Shadow
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) – Grave robbers stole the corpse of former Cyprus President Tassos Papadopoulos after digging up his coffin on the eve of the first anniversary of the statesmen’s death, police said Friday.
A light-gray substance was sprayed across the tombstone in a village cemetery southwest of the capital, Nicosia, obscuring the name and date of birth of the hardline former president of the internationally recognized Greek Cypriot south of the island. Cyprus was split into a Turkish-occupied north and a Greek Cypriot south in 1974.
Mounds of fresh earth could be seen at the grave site, which police investigators cordoned off and searched. They did not discuss a possible motive for the violation.
Saturday is the first anniversary of the death of Papadopoulos, who was a central figure of Cypriot politics for decades, and who became president in 2003. He died of lung cancer on Dec. 12, 2008 at 74.
Papadopoulos had famously urged Greek Cypriots to reject a reunification plan brokered by then U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, which he vilified as entrenching the island’s division rather than ending it.
Three-quarters of Cypriots obliged him in an April 2004 referendum. Two-thirds of Turkish Cypriots accepted the plan.
“It was with grief that I received the news of the sacrilege,” said President Demetris Christofias, who beat Papadopoulos in March 2008 elections. “This is an unacceptable, unholy, unethical and condemnable act that damages our tradition, our culture and our respect toward the dead.”
Christofias called on Cypriots “to remain calm in the face of this provocative act.
“I cannot think of any other words to describe this incident,” he said.
Investigators believe the body was taken either late Thursday night or early Friday morning. Neighbors said there had been heavy rain and a lightning storm during the night.
Papadopoulos’ family issued a written statement saying that they were grieved and angered by the “sacrilegious act of the tomb raiders.”
The theft of the former president’s remains “cannot in any way bury the policy or erase the political will of Tassos Papadopoulos. Wherever his body maybe, his voice will still be heard and will continue to be heard during the difficult times of our national issue,” the family statement said.
A British-trained lawyer, Papadopoulos was a veteran of Cyprus politics whose career spanned most of the island’s turbulent history since gaining independence from British colonial rule in 1960.
He was a leader of the Greek Cypriot guerrilla group EOKA, which waged an anti-colonial campaign, and served as the youngest cabinet minister in the island’s first post-independence government, at the age of 26.
Turkey invaded the island in 1974 in response to a coup by supporters of unification with Greece. Christofias, the current president, has been holding reunification talks with Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat, but little clear progress has been made.
“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,” he added.
