TURKISH Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash said yesterday he would allow Panicos Tsiakourmas to visit his critically ill mother if he was convicted on drugs charges in the north on Thursday.
Denktash, on a visit to the mixed buffer-zone village of Pyla yesterday, told Greek Cypriot journalists that if Tsiakourmas was acquitted, then he could go where he wished, but added that if he was convicted by the ‘court’, he would be “given permission” to visit his mother.
Doctors said yesterday that Eleni Tsiakourmas, 78, who is diabetic like her 39-year old son, had slipped into unconsciousness and was not responding to treatment.
She was admitted to hospital last Thursday after suffering a stroke that doctors say was brought on because of her son’s detention.
She had been campaigning and protesting with the rest of the Tsiakourmas family over Easter but collapsed at 4.30pm last Thursday and was rushed to Larnaca hospital.
“Her condition is worsening,” Dr Ioannis Markou told the Cyprus Mail yesterday. “She is very critical.”
Markou said she had developed pneumonia and was suffering from an uncontrolled infection and continued high blood pressure.
“She is not responding and she could go at any time,” Markou said. “This was all brought on by the stress of what happened to her son.”
Panicos Tsiakourmas was abducted on December 13 last year from the Pyla-Pergamos road within British bases territory, taken to the north and accused of possessing two kilos of cannabis. His car was found abandoned with the doors open and the lights on early in the morning.
The British High Commission has lodged several high-level protests with the Turkish Cypriot side but to no avail. A spokesman there yesterday refused to comment on what was being done to have Tsiakourmas released.
UNFICYP said an official request had been made through them for Tsiakourmas to be allowed to visit his mother but that they had not yet received a response from the Turkish Cypriot side. They expected an official answer today.
Government Spokesman Michalis Papapetrou said yesterday the government would make every effort to bring Tsiakourmas back to visit his mother.
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.
