Matsakis calls police to account over treatment of suspects

DIKO deputy Marios Matsakis yesterday accused police of covering up allegations that suspects had been mistreated in custody.

The outspoken deputy, who is also a former state coroner, said he had examined three youths at Nicosia General Hospital on August 31, who bore signs of beatings he claimed were inflicted by police officers. Matsakis said the boys had a number of lesions covering their bodies, while one had a fractured hand and the other had sustained damage to his skull.

But state pathologist Eleni Antoniou disputed his findings, saying the injuries had come from falls. Matsakis insisted the lesions and scrapes covering the entire body could not have been obtained by falling down.

Police deny the youths’ accusations and claim they have two eyewitnesses who had called them to report a beating at the EKO petrol station on Stasinou Avenue in Nicosia at 4.40am. According to police, one confirmed that when police arrived, one man tried run away but tripped and fell onto the pavement. A second witness stated seeing a second man trying to escape when he also fell heavily.

Matsakis, however, insisted that police were only interested in hushing up the case.
“I hope an investigation is carried out and some action is taken against these police officers,” Matsakis told the Cyprus Mail.

Government Spokesman Kypros Chrysostomides said yesterday that Matsakis’ assessments were not in concurrence with those of the government.

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.