Officer suspended after guns found in luggage

A POLICEMAN was yesterday suspended on the Police Chief’s orders after being caught trying to leave a European country with weapons in his suitcase.

According to police the officer was arrested on Tuesday by the country’s customs’ control whilst on his way back to Cyprus.

Officers there found five air pistols and five hundred bullets in his suitcase.

He was arrested and fined around €10,000, before returning to Cyprus yesterday. He failed to inform the local authorities on what had happened.

But Police Chief Iacovos Papacostas got wind of the affair and suspended the policeman in question.

The suspect now faces charges of corruption, inappropriate behaviour and negligence of duty.

“Spotting such incidents and behaviours by members of the police does not happen by chance; it is the result of the effective control mechanisms of the police,” the police announced yesterday.

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.