A BUSINESSMAN claiming his Ayia Napa shop was illegally razed to the ground “under cover of darkness” has left the country saying he no longer feels safe in Cyprus.
On February 18, Milan Garaca, a naturalised Cypriot originally from Montenegro, who owns and operates an off-licence and kiosk, was overseas. He received a phone call in the small hours from a distressed friend telling him that bulldozers were busy tearing down his establishment.
The business is located on the busy Nissi Avenue in Ayia Napa.
Garaca asked his friend to take pictures of the destruction. He says the friend was threatened by the demolition crew, but managed to take the photos anyway.
In a state of frenzy, Garaca returned to Cyprus on the evening of the same day, only to be told that the contents of his store had disappeared.
The construction alone, owned entirely by Garaca, cost somewhere in the area of £200,000. There is now only a pile of debris where it once stood.
Moreover, the shop contained some £80,000 worth of merchandise.
Business had been good, with an annual turnover of around £1 million.
An eyewitness to the demolition has told him that his stock was jammed into a container and hauled off.
Garaca has had a longstanding dispute with the owner of the land on which the shop stood.
The landlord claims Garaca has consistently failed to pay him rent. Moreover, a court decision had ordered Garaca to demolish part of the property. The order had been issued because the landlord claimed Garaca did not secure a certificate of final approval for the annex from town planning authorities. The verdict was handed down late last November, with a two-month deadline for its implementation.
Garaca appealed against that ruling at the Supreme Court, which reserved judgment for a later date.
“It’s important to stress that the court ordered me to carry out the demolition, not someone else,” Garaca told the Mail.
“Then one night somebody decides to take advantage of the fact that I’m away, and they destroy my shop. What sort of place are we living in?”
The Mail has seen the court order, issued by a Larnaca court, which specifically instructs the tenant, Garaca, to tear down three annexes to the shop as these lacked a town-planning permit.
Other than that, Garaca had all construction and commercial permits in order.
An expert in civil tort who saw the documents, affirmed to the Mail that the court order leaves no doubt as to who must take action against the premises.
“The landlord is not instructed or authorised to do anything. Therefore, if he had done something to the premises, yes, that would be illegal,” the source said.
According to Garaca, the landlord was at the scene of the demolition, and he has the pictures to prove it.
He is accusing the landowner of malicious damage to his property and trespassing. Yet to this day, he claims, the man has not been questioned by police.
In a letter addressed to the Justice Minister, the Attorney-general and the Chief of Police, Garaca has called on authorities to investigate the matter because, as he says, “a cover-up is in the works.”
“The above act was carried out with the knowledge, tolerance and protection of Ayia Napa police, where Mr… [the landlord] has friends. Thus the police was an accomplice to this crime perpetrated against me, and the Republic should assume its responsibilities towards me,” reads the letter.
The Mail contacted Police Chief Charalambos Koulendis, who said that according to his information there was nothing illegal about the demolition and that Ayia Napa police were following the letter of the law.
Garaca says he has been left with nothing but debt.
Since the incident, he has returned to his home country.
“I don’t feel safe there [in Cyprus] any more,” he told the Mail.
“If someone can take the law in their own hands, come and destroy your business and nothing happens, then what next?
“There is nothing for me. I came to Cyprus in the 1990s to escape the war in Yugoslavia. Now I’m a refugee for the second time,” he said.
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