Briton remanded as drugs suspect

THE British flat-mate of a Dane flown home on Thursday to face drug trafficking charges was yesterday remanded suspected of drug pushing.

Famagusta District Court heard that police had been after 20-year-old Thomas David Watkins since the May 22 raid on the Ayia Napa flat he shared with Danish suspect Kurt Nielsen.

Watkins was in the flat at the time of the raid and Nielsen’s arrest, but he escaped before police could apprehend him, the court heard.

The 20-year-old from Ipswich was eventually tracked down, arrested, and brought up before the court yesterday.

Case investigator Andreas Constantinou told the court police had a statement from a witness saying Watkins had approached a foreign visitor in Ayia Napa offering to sell cannabis. A small quantity of cannabis was found on the suspect at the time of his arrest, Constantinou said.

He said police believed the Briton was part of a gang smuggling narcotics into Cyprus.

Watkins was remanded for eight days.

Nielsen, 32, from Copenhagen, is wanted in Denmark on charges of possession and trafficking in more than 100 kilos of cannabis imported from Norway.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.