A DISTRAUGHT Niki Tsiakourmas said yesterday her diabetic husband’s condition had worsened and that the family feared for his health after a month in a Turkish Cypriot prison.
Returning from her visit to the north yesterday, a tearful Mrs Tsiakourmas said her 39-year-old husband Panicos, who was seized from his car inside the British bases on December 12 and is facing drugs charges, was not being cared for properly.
“He’s getting worse,” she said. “He asked us to take him sedatives so he could sleep. He hasn’t been given any medicines since Monday.”
Niki Tsiakourmas blamed the government for failing to do enough to have her husband released.
“This is an accusation against our government,” she said. “Right now I’m accusing our government for not caring about my husband.”
The couple’s daughter Maria said her father was in “a desperate condition”.
“He cries all night without sleeping,” she said.
UNFICYP spokesman Charles Gaulkin told the Cyprus Mail yesterday they hoped to send a UN doctor to see Tsiakourmas in the next few days and that they were in the process of obtaining permission from the Turkish Cypriot side.
“Tsiakourmas has a severe diabetic condition and has to be closely monitored,” Gaulkin said.
Earlier yesterday, friends and relatives of Tsiakourmas gathered at the Ledra Palace checkpoint and handed a letter to Britain’s special Cyprus envoy Sir David Hannay, who crossed to the north for a meeting with Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash.
The letter set out the facts surrounding Tsiakourmas’ abduction and illegal
detention, and urged Britain to take its responsibilities in securing his release.
Government spokesman Michalis Papapetrou said yesterday Britain did hold some responsibility in the case.
“Britain is responsible because it is a fact that in an area under their control a crime was committed, that is to say a kidnapping, and the government considers Britain and the British bases responsible until Tsiakourmas is freed,” he said.
“Beyond this, the responsibility cannot only be limited to Britain. Turkey is also responsible because through its self-styled regime it essentially carried out this abduction.”
He said the Cyprus government was using everything at its disposal on a political and legal basis to have Tsiakourmas freed.
Appeals have been made to the UN and the Council of Europe, and an early day motion has also been tabled in the British House of Commons.
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.
