FEARS were growing last night for two prominent Cypriot businessmen detained in Bahrain, after the official Gulf News Agency reported the arrest of five Cypriot and Jordanian businessmen suspected of trying to use a fake bank guarantee for $50 million.
Costas Polemidiotes, 50, and his colleague Andreas Papayiannis were in Bahrain on business, when they mysteriously disappeared last Tuesday.
Their companion, Jordanian national, Asim Almonami was also reported missing.
On July 19, the Bahrain Monetary Agency (Bahrain Central Bank) received a report from an international bank official that the suspects had presented a false bank guarantee for $50 million.
The five businessmen were arrested and are being held in police custody, according to the BMA.
But local journalists were last night unable to confirm the identity or number of Cypriot businessmen in police custody.
The men’s lawyer Christos Clerides yesterday refused to talk to the Cyprus Mail about the case.
Early reports suggested that his clients were being detained to assist with an investigation concerning the import and export of money.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that the honorary consul of Cyprus in Bahrain had visited the men, but also declined to talk to the press, stressing the need to handle the incident with tact.
Cyprus police enlisted the help of Interpol after Polemidiotes’ wife reported her husband missing to Nicosia CID last Thursday.
She became concerned when she heard nothing after a last telephone call last Tuesday morning.
The couple had been in contact three or four times daily.
The two Cypriots were allegedly met in the lobby of their hotel by a police officer and a representative from the Bahrain Foreign Ministry, when they checked out.
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.
