Police believe flyaway parrot sparked bomb attack

By Andrew Adamides

A BOMB attack in Limassol early yesterday morning has nothing to do with cabaret turf wars or underworld rackets, police believe.

In fact, this row is thought to have been sparked by a parrot.

Police say a home-made bomb exploded at around 3am under a pick-up truck belonging to Pachna upholsterer Andreas Evgenios Pachniotis.

The vehicle was parked outside his shop, above which he lives, and the blast caused damage to both the vehicle and the shop windows.

Acting on information given to them by the victim, police arrested Costas Sofroniou Cleanthous, 51, and his unemployed son Vladimir, 20.

Limassol district court yesterday remanded them for eight days to help police with their enquiries.

Pachniotis apparently told police he had become involved in a fight with Cleanthous and his son over his parrot, which had gone missing from its cage.

He said the bird had been spotted at the suspects’ house, and instead of trapping it and returning it to him, they had set it free.

Witnesses said that at the time of the altercation, Vladimir had warned Pachniotis not to argue with him and his father because “we put bombs”.

The parrot’s current whereabouts are unknown.

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.