highlights

Ex-Cyprus president's body stolen from grave

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-12-12 20:17

A view of the grave of former Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos near Nicosia December 11, 2009. [Agencies]

NICOSIA, Cyprus: Grave robbers stole the corpse of former Cyprus President Tassos Papadopoulos, digging up his coffin during a thunderstorm just before the first anniversary of his death, police said.

The body-snatching horrified people in Cyprus and came as the island's Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders are locked in complex reunification talks that have made limited progress.

Police said the tomb raiders struck late Thursday or early Friday. There was no immediate indication of a motive.

Police spokesman Michalis Katsounotos said three people were initially detained for questioning but released without charge. He gave no more details.

President Demetris Christofias, who beat Papadopoulos in March 2008 elections, urged Cypriots "to remain calm in the face of this provocative act."

"This is an unacceptable, unholy, unethical and condemnable act that damages our tradition, our culture and our respect toward the dead," Christofias said.

"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," said Andros Kyprianou, the head of Cyprus' ruling AKEL party. He urged that those responsible be "caught and made an example of."

Mounds of fresh earth were piled by the fenced-off grave site Friday at the Deftera Village Cemetery as about 80 police and two pathologists combed the area and nearly fields for clues.

The robbers had removed a heavy marble plaque from on top of the grave, police said, digging down to the coffin and taking the body of Papadopoulos, who died of lung cancer on December 12, 2008, at 74.

A light-gray substance was sprayed across the tombstone in a southwestern suburb of the capital Nicosia, obscuring Papadopoulos' name and date of birth but leaving the tombstone otherwise unharmed. Local media said the substance appeared to be lime, possibly used to erase the robbers' shoe prints.

The violated grave was discovered by one of Papadopoulos' former security guards when he went to make arrangements Friday morning for a ceremony marking the anniversary of the former president's death, police said.