‘Do not allow the law to be used as a political tool’
Two Turkish Cypriots accused of aiding and abetting the five Greek Cypriots arrested in the north last month on suspicion of espionage and remain in custody were on Monday brought before a court in Trikomo.
The pair, an 83-year-old estate agent and an employee of the north’s land registry, were both remanded in custody for a further three days.
Newspaper Ozgur Gazete’s editor-in-chief Pinar Barut reported that judge Semra Kaymaklili told the court there are “two more people” whom the police wish to speak to, but it is not yet clear “whether they will appear in court as witnesses or defendants”.
She explained that the 83-year-old had been arrested on July 23 and had been taken to hospital “at several points” during the time he had spent in custody.
Therefore, she said, judge Kaymaklili had found the prosecution’s request that he be remanded for a further eight days to be “disproportionate”.
The land registry employee appeared in court immediately after, with the police representative saying this individual is accused of privacy violations.
It was this person, the police representative said, who handed the “blue folder” to the Greek Cypriots arrested on July 19, with that blue folder having contained “a list of names and a map” of the area in which the Greek Cypriots were arrested, near the village of Galatia.
The police representative added that the documents also bore the “signature and seal of [the] estate agent” who appeared in court before him.
Earlier in the day, the court heard that the 83-year-old had verbally admitted the signature and seal on the documents belonged to him.
In addition, the police representative said during a search of the 83-year-old’s email records other information had been provided by him to the Greek Cypriots “so that they could sue TRNC citizens in the south”.
Barut said the police representative also told the court the land registry employee’s house, car and office had all been searched on July 31, that two mobile phones and two laptops had been seized, and that he had “confessed to his crime”.
However, she said, “we have not learned exactly what he confessed”.
According to Barut, the police representative then requested the land registry employee be handed an eight-day remand, but was cut off by the lead prosecution lawyer, who said the prosecution only wished for a three-day remand.
“This is because the estate agent was also given a three-day remand just now and that investigation is the same,” the prosecution lawyer was quoted as saying.
When defence lawyer Mustafa Asena addressed the court, he was, according to Barut, scathing of the investigation.
“This investigation will never end. This matter is political, not legal. Please do not allow the law to be used as a political tool, your honour. The aim is to ensure that the longer these suspects remain in prison, the better. The Turkish Cypriots are being dealt a terrible blow,” he was quoted as saying.
The five Greek Cypriots are three men, aged 68, 66 and 60, and two women, aged 63 and 60. They were arrested on July 19 after being seen in a residential area in Galatia, near Trikomo, “walking around with a blue folder” and “causing concern”.
Two of the five were remanded in custody for a further three months at a court in Trikomo last Thursday, while all five were then handed 13-day remands by a military court in northern Nicosia in the early hours of Saturday morning.