A BODY deposited in a Nicosia area cemetery is that of former Cypriot president Tassos Papadopoulos. It had been stolen from his grave last December on the eve of ceremonies marking the first anniversary of his death.
DNA tests completed early yesterday confirmed that the remains were those of Mr Papadopoulos. They were found after a man speaking broken Greek phoned the Papadopoulos family, who alerted the police.
Fotini Papadopoulos, the former president’s widow, said it had “put an end to the ordeal which has overwhelmed us for the past three months”.
“We hope that the police investigation will lead to the location of the culprits as soon as possible,” she added.
Cypriot president Demetris Christofias, Mr Papadopoulos’s successor, spoke of his satisfaction that the affair had come to an end.
However, the island’s police and public remain as baffled as they were when the grave was found empty. Interpol, Scotland Yard and the Greek and Israeli police were asked to help in the search for the body.
Mr Papadopoulos had a long career in politics. A British-trained barrister, he defended members of the Greek Cypriot liberation movement detained by the British colonial administration during the country’s struggle for self-determination.
He was the youngest minister in the first government after independence in 1960 and served as negotiator in talks with the Turkish Cypriots on the reunification of the island after the Turkish occupation of the north in 1974.
Elected president in 2003, he gained a reputation as a hardliner when he urged Greek Cypriots to reject a UN plan for reunification on the grounds that it legitimised division. He died at the age of 74.
