TWO British tourists were yesterday jailed for three years by the Famagusta Assizes for trafficking in ecstasy tablets at the holiday resort of Ayia Napa.
Lee Mortimer, 22 and Paul Hartely, 25, both from Burnley in Lancashire, were found guilty of trafficking and possession of a class A drug, and a charge of assaulting a police office, causing actually bodily harm.
Each was sentenced to three years for trafficking, three years for possession and nine months for assault. The jail terms will run concurrently.
Handing out what was the stiffest drugs sentence this year, Judge Andreas Paschalides, president of the three-bench Famagusta Assizes Court, said “a deterrent sentence was needed to combat the drugs scourge” that was plaguing the island.
Mortimer and Hartely, who seemed taken aback at the heavy sentence but didn’t comment to journalists, arrived in Cyprus on June 11 this year. They were both arrested two days later trying to sell 25 ecstasy pills at an Ayia Napa pub. A subsequent search of their holiday apartment revealed a further 159 tablets.
During mitigation, defence counsel Michalis Pelekanos argued that the two men had a clean record and were not professional drugs pushers. Judge Paschalides replied there would not be a drugs market without users.
So far this year, some 45 British tourists have been arrested on drugs charges. Almost all were arrested in Ayia Napa, the popular resort on the southeastern coast of the island, where young British holidaymakers are flocking to the booming club scene.
Justice Minister Nicos Koshis has pledged to put more police on Ayia Napa’s streets, but the government has shelved the idea of a specialised tourist police force due to budgetary constraints.
Cyprus implements a “zero tolerance” policy on drugs and often imposes harsh sentences on convicted offenders.
A British video campaign aiming to stop tourists taking drugs in Cyprus is due to be launched shortly, but the video had to be softened after it ruffled the Cyprus government’s feathers.
Britain was forced to change the 45-second video twice after initial versions were rejected by Cyprus authorities, who said it was too harsh. The original video featured a prison wagon and the grim message “Drugs + Cyprus = Jail”.
The video will now show two British clubbers in Cyprus being escorted into a police car after buying ecstasy tablets.
It will be shown on incoming flights and tourist buses – mainly those headed towards Ayia Napa.
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.
