Heroin suspect remanded after police sting

AN IRANIAN man was yesterday remanded for eight days after a police sting operation allegedly caught him trying to sell heroin to an undercover policeman.

The man’s 15-year-old daughter, meanwhile, has been put in the care of the Welfare Services. Both were in Cyprus illegally.

Limassol District Court yesterday heard that the 44-year-old suspect had been under police surveillance for some time following a tip-off.

Posing as a buyer, an undercover police officer met the suspect on Friday afternoon on the pretence of buying drugs.

Once the transaction was under way, police who had been in hiding in the area pounced, finding 104 grams of heroin on him.

The suspect yesterday told the court that he had the drugs in his possession but that he was not a drug dealer. He said the heroin had been given to him by another Iranian who had already left Cyprus.

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.