Church suicide threat lands Kurdish man in jail

A KURDISH political asylum seeker was yesterday jailed by a Nicosia Court after threatening to commit suicide inside Nicosia’s Faneromeni Church on Saturday afternoon.

Yesterday, a Nicosia judge sentenced the 41-year-old man to 30 days imprisonment after pleading guilty to the two charges of entry into a private area with the intention of disturbing the peace and illegal possession of a knife.

Police arrested the man at around 4pm on Saturday after he wandered into the church and demanded to speak to the priest.

“I wanted to speak to the priest because I had some problems,” he told the judge yesterday.
But he became disgruntled when the priest did not show up and decided that the best way to get attention was to pull out a knife and place it against his throat.

It was then that the police were called from Paphos Gate police station.

“Two police officers arrived at the church and the defendant eventually put the knife down after CID Constable Perseas Hadjileontis managed to calm him down,” said State Prosecutor Margarita Avraamidou.

According to the Kurdish man, he had fled Turkey and arrived in the occupied north last Tuesday. He then crossed into the south on Thursday.

He also told the court that being an EU state, “Cyprus is obliged to offer me political asylum”.
“My life in Turkey was very hard and that is why I decided to leave.”

Jailing him yesterday, Judge Alexandros Panayiotou said, “It is not the first time that the courts have dealt with individuals requesting political asylum because they want a better future for themselves. We feel compassion for them.

“However, the manner in which the defendant wanted to express his intention for political asylum was not only socially unacceptable but also illegal.

“Cyprus is a hospitable state and it expects its visitors to show a mutual respect to its laws.”