THE TRIAL of suspected Turkish Cypriot drug trafficker Omer Tekogul from Pyla opened yesterday at Larnaca court to rapt attention from a packed courthouse.
Tekogul was arrested on December 1, 2000. He was charged on January 10 on seven counts of possession and intent to supply heroin within the Republic.
Proceedings were dominated by a two-an-a-half hour marathon testimony from Sergeant Yiannakis Ioannou, one of the two police officers who arrested 42-year-old Tekogul, after setting up a covert sting operation for several months.
He was cross-examined in the witness box by defence lawyer Guzel Kardi. The suspect’s wife, sister and father, as well as an UNFICYP officer and Turkish Cypriot journalists, were crowded into the public gallery.
Ioannou said he had posed as a builder and his colleague as a painter, both desperate for drugs.
He said they visited Tekogul at the coffee shop in Pyla, where the suspect offered them coffee, as well as a menu of drugs.
Ioannou told the court that Tekogul had claimed he could get anything from hashish to heroin or whisky.
Three separate meetings took place, the first two at the Turkish Cypriot coffeeshop in Pyla, and the third after the officers lured the suspect behind the UNFICYP barrels that demarcate the buffer zone.
Ioannou said it had taken some time to persuade Tekogul to go ahead with the deal outside the buffer zone, where police have no jurisdiction.
But on December 1, the court heard that they managed to force him into their car on the Pyla to Larnaca road, where they arrested him for heroin trafficking.
Ioannou swore that the suspect had been handcuffed outside the buffer zone – dismissing Turkish Cypriot claims that Tekogul was kidnapped from within the UN-controlled areas.
The suspect was taken into custody with two kilos of heroin stuffed in a nylon bag, with a street value of around £22,000.
He stands charged of possessing on 2.1 grams of cannabis on August 10, 0.247 grams of heroin on November 23 and 1.967 kilos of heroin on December 1.
The case has caused a political storm, after a Greek Cypriot father of three was abducted from British Sovereign Base territory 10 days after Tekogul’s arrest.
Panicos Tsiakourmas, 39, now faces almost identical charges in the occupied north. Diplomats have said the Turkish Cypriot authorities want a direct swap, a suggestion ruled out by everyone else.
Tekogul was refused bail on the fear that he might disappear into the Turkish-controlled areas, beyond the reach of the police.
The case continues today.
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