By Jean Christou
A FILIPINO man who rushed to the aid of an acquaintance in a brawl last August found himself in the dock yesterday awaiting deportation after he complained that police had beaten him up following the incident.
Lawyers for 44-year-old Angelito Juliano, who was released later yesterday, have now filed for damages against police, who allegedly tried to deport their client while an investigation by the Attorney-general’s office against two police officers was pending.
Lawyer Yiannakis Erotokritou told the Cyprus Mailyesterday he had filed for damages of between £5,000 and £10,000 on behalf of his client, who allegedly sustained injuries to his face following his arrest in August.
Juliano, who was working in Cyprus for four years with a local company until his contract expired on September 26, was arrested again yesterday morning and held at Lycavitos police station for deportation after appearing at Nicosia district court. He was released later in the day after Erotokritou lodged objections with the Attorney-general’s office.
” The Attorney-general has appointed a criminal investigator because Juliano was beaten during his time in police custody,”Erotokritou said. ” Police were trying to send him out of Cyprus because of the criminal investigation against them.”
Juliano was first arrested in August, accused of attacking an Egyptian man who was allegedly attacking an acquaintance of his, also a Filipino.
According to Juliano’s sister Veronica Shammas, the Egyptian and the Filipino, who knew each other, had become involved in a row on August 9, which she said turned nasty.
” My brother saw that the other Filipino man couldn’t breathe any more the way he was being held by the throat and he tried to push the Egyptian man away,”she said. ” The Egyptian man was six foot five and my brother is five foot six.”
Shammas admitted that the Egyptian man was injured slightly in the fracas.
” He turned his anger on my brother and accused him of trying to kill him. It wasn’t true, but the police didn’t believe my brother,”she said.
She said Juliano was then arrested. He claimed he was taken inside a private room at the Paphos Gate police station and beaten by two officers.
” His eyebrow was cut and he lost one tooth,”Shammas added.
” The police don’t like to be exposed so they filed a case against my brother over the fight and now they are trying to deport him.”
But she added that despite the charges being brought against her brother for his part in the fight, he had himself lodged an official complaint against the police before his work contract expired on September 26.
” Because he is a foreigner, they don’t want to be exposed if he testifies. The two that were fighting are friends now and my brother is the one that was put in jail,”Shammas said. ” I told my brother he shouldn’t have intervened.”
Erotokritou said the police later tried to withdraw the case against Juliano, allegedly to make it easier for them to deport him.
” I believe myself that the police were accusing him wrongly and that it was a case of self-defence,”he said. ” He was not the one who caused it. The other guy said he had a knife but they didn’t find any knife.”
Erotokritou also accused the police of not giving the Attorney-general’s office the full facts of the case. He said he called immigration himself and had Juliano released yesterday afternoon. The case against the Filipino man is due in court on December 6.
