Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Papadopoulos grave robbery: three arrested

The 'broken Greek' tip-off that led police to the body of former Greek Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos, reinterred in the grave of a Greek Cypriot refugee from Dikomo, may have been from one of the three men just arrested.

[10.45pm, 10th March 2010 update: the crime has been solved: Tassos Papadopoulos's body was stolen for ransom.]

According to Charles Charalambous (2010), Greek Cypriot police identified the suspects as 'convicted rapist and murderer Antonis Prokopiou Kitas, his brother and an unnamed Indian man'.

According to the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (CyBC), the unnamed Indian 'confessed to the grave robbing', and 'said he and Kitas' brother... were able to push the tomb stone aside relatively easily', and that they 'placed the remains in the Strovolos cemetery on December 11' (paraphrased by Charalambous, 2010), that is, on the same day the remains were stolen.

Yet there were 'signs that the tombstone had been recently moved', the 'soil... freshly dug, suggesting that Papadopoulos' remains had been moved there very recently' (Charalambous, 2010), not nearly three months ago.

And since the tombstone was a 250-300kg granite slab, it was believed that 'the act was the work of a group of people, at least four but probably more than that' (Psyllides, 2009 - emphasis added), certainly not just two.

Curiouser and curiouser...

Charalambous, C. 2010: "Three arrests after remains confirmed as Papadopoulos". The Cyprus Mail, 10th March. Available at: http://www.cyprus-mail.com/cyprus/three-arrests-after-remains-confirmed-papadopoulos/20100310

Psyllides, G. 2009: "Breaking news: Papadopoulos' grave desecrated, remains stolen". Cyprus Mail, 11th December. Available at: http://cyprus-mail.com/tassos-papadopoulos/breaking-news-papadopoulos-grave-desecrated-remains-stolen

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