JUSTICE Minister Doros Theodorou was yesterday raked over the coals for suggesting gangsters on both sides of the divide were pioneers when it came to rapprochement between the two communities.
He was referring to the murder this week of Giorgos Kyprou, aka Fantik, who was shot at point-blank range outside a kiosk in the Strovolos suburb of Nicosia. Ballistics showed the murder weapon was a 7.62mm assault rifle, and detectives believe the type of bullets used was most likely from the north.
Detectives also found some 1.3kg of an explosive material (without a detonator) in the trunk of the victim’s car.
Two persons are being held on suspicion of masterminding the crime.
The Justice Minister used this evidence to say that criminal elements in the south may have found a loophole in the EU safety net to carry out their criminal activities, for example by hiring hitmen from the occupied areas ever since the opening of the checkpoints.
“We have a problem which, although it existed before the checkpoints opened, has now got bigger,” Theodorou said on Thursday.
“I would say that one of the first meetings and certainly one of the most advanced collaborations between the two communities has been accomplished by the people of the underworld.”
But his comments struck a raw nerve with the political world, outraged that Theodorou should equate a touchy issue such as rapprochement to the activities of mobsters.
DISY boss Nikos Anastassiades led the onslaught on the minister, describing the latter’s statements as politically incorrect and “totally unacceptable”.
He went on to urge archrivals AKEL, a party with claims to forging bonds between the two communities, to “deal with this phenomenon”.
“When I heard [Theodorou’s] statement on the underworld, the first thing that sprung to my mind was: ‘Is AKEL the underworld?’”
The communist party took up the baton, with chairman Demetris Christofias expressing “grief” at Theodorou’s gaffe.
“No one has the right to undermine rapprochement with this sort of comments. Rapprochement did not begin with the opening of the checkpoints,” Christofias said.
The United Democrats also issued a statement condemning Theodorou.
The minister yesterday engaged in some damage control, saying he was merely pointing out one of the downsides to the lifting of restrictions on movement since April 2003.
“Certainly, there are many more positive elements to the opening of the checkpoints than there are negative ones,” he said.
It was the latest in a series of blunders by Theodorou that have often been a source of embarrassment to the government.
In September 2004, he claimed that Chechen terrorists operated in the north, only for his allegations to be rejected on the very next day by then presidential spokesman Marios Karoyian.
And back in 2003, speaking on the sexual abuse of foreign women in Cyprus, Theodorou cited a survey conducted in Eastern European countries that supposedly revealed that the dream of 45 per cent of the women was to become prostitutes.
