NOBODY could have guessed that Kyproulla’s best-known, murderous psycho would have masterminded the theft of the remains of the Ethnarch. I am jumping to conclusions here as nothing has been proved against the irrepressible Al Capone, who is just a suspect at present, but the risk of a libel suit is negligible.
The only danger would be for his lawyer to claim we were destroying his reputation as a notorious criminal by linking him with a relatively minor offence. Grave robbery would not look good on a CV that included convictions for murder and rape, even if it indicated that Capone was constantly diversifying and broadening his range of crimes.
Capone’s alleged involvement in this sordid affair would have disappointed all those bash-patriots who wanted the theft of the remains to have been a plot by the nasty foreigners, who in the words of the cunning criminal investigator Yiorkos Lillikas, “wanted to send a message to Cypriot Hellenism.”
The message was that “the symbol which embodied the resistance of Cypriot Hellenism to catastrophic plans had been eliminated.” Lillikas’ theory might not have seemed so stupid if Capone took money from foreign secret services to commit the latest crime which former aide of the Ethnarch Tasos Tzionis described as “a terrorist act of massive proportions that hit the centre of our souls”.
Terrorism, if it is proved, would be a significant addition to the lifer’s impressive CV.
WHATEVER one says though, the alleged involvement of a hardened, ruthless criminal in the case made a bit of a mockery of all these heroically defiant words by the late Ethnarch’s disciples who were hell-bent on reading grave (sorry about the lame pun but I could not resist it), political significance into the sinister removal of the remains.
Even after the discovery of the remains and remand of the suspects, the head of the Tassos Papadopoulos Foundation, Chrysis Pantelides, acting as the spokesman of the family, tried to maintain a certain profile for the crime and became involved in a public spat with the minister of justice minister.
The minister, Loucas Louca had said on Tuesday morning that “ransom demands lay behind the theft and there was no political motive whatsoever.” At lunch-time, an irate Pantelides said on a TV show that the family had never received a ransom demand, implying that the minister did not know what he was talking about.
In the afternoon, a wounded Louca repeated his ransom story, which “was based on truth and reality” and insisted that the motives for the crime “were financial”. Chrysis eventually had to concede there was a demand for money from the family, but it was not a ransom demand. It was a request for a reward (reportedly €200,000) in exchange for information about the location of the Ethnarch’s remains, Chrysis explained.
Having been the Ethnarch’s closest aide, for five years, it was inevitable Chrysis would have picked up the noble skill of splitting hairs from his late boss, whose mastery of the skill was unrivalled.
THE SPAT was not just about disagreement over word definitions. Louca, on the instructions of his comrade boss, tried to debunk all the heroic folk-lore surrounding the theft of the remains, which was being used to build up the Tassos legend – the great leader who continued to lead national resistance from the grave.
Louca kept talking about ransom and money motives, because his boss wanted the Tassos myth-making to stop. Apart from causing him problems on the domestic front, it was also preventing the Tofias myth-making from getting off the ground.
Chrysis, on the other hand, as director of the Tassos P Foundation, is getting a fat salary to cultivate and promote the posthumous, national hero status of the Ethnarch, which was not helped by talk of ransom and money motives. This belittled the crime and destroyed its patriotic myth-making potential.
But all is not lost, for the Tassos P foundation, because the perpetrators could still claim in court that they were not after a ransom, but that they had been paid by a foreign secret service to “eliminate the symbol of resistance of Cypriot Hellenism.” What would the comrade do then?
SPEAKING of foundations, the Coffeeshop was thrilled to hear of the establishment of the Spy Kyp Foundation, which would have as its “main aim, the systematic study and research of his body of work and of the period of his activity.” The Foundation will also introduce the Kyp award, but no details were released about the achievements it would reward.
I suspect it would go to an individual who in some way promotes the values and ideals of Spy, or makes his political thoughts comprehensible to rational people or consistently invents foreign conspiracies or helps the rise of incompetents to positions of authority, or ensures more rusfeti for DIKO members.
I could be entirely wrong and the award may be given to people less than five feet tall who achieved great things, just like Spy and Napoleon before him. Or it could go to political fruitcakes that make us laugh, just like the fun-guy Spy did for so many years and for which we are eternally indebted to him.
THE TOTAL amount of cash generated for lawyers by the ECHR recourse craze was between four and five million euro, reported Politis. The paper found that for each application a lawyer charged anything between £1,500 and £2,000.
One of the lawyers who submitted a fair number of applications, Christos Clerides, told the Lazaros patriotism show on Tuesday that the Politis report was not accurate and that the amounts he charged ranged “from the negligible to the minimal”.
This was exactly the same tactic resorted to by another smart lawyer, Dr Claire Palley, when she denied our report that her academic acquaintances were paid phenomenally high amounts for their work for the Republic, She said she secured their services at “reduced professional rates”, but never bothered informing us the actual amounts.
Clerides also avoided divulging the figure which he considered “negligible”. Of course what might rightly be considered a negligible amount by a wealthy Nicosia lawyer could be three months’ wages for a some impoverished refugee.
DR PALLEY and Dr Clerides have another thing in common apart from a talent for fudging issues relating to legal fees. Both have filed libel suits against our establishment, using the services of the same lawyer, our learned friend and former ECHR judge Loucis Loucaides. This was the case until recently, because I hear that Dr Palley has fallen out with Loucaides because he delayed submitting his statement of claims to the court and she has now hired the Antis Triantafyllides firm to represent her. She is seeking damages ranging from the exorbitant to the extortionate, but that’s another story.
THE GRUMPY Loucaides was in fine form on a Tuesday night TV show, discussing the consequences and implications of the ECHR decision. In the bit I caught he was at the start of the show, spitting out words like a scatter –gun, brow-beating the other guests and gesticulating with menace when he was not shuffling through his piles of papers.
Another guest on the same show was deputy Attorney-general Akis Papasavvas. It is difficult to understand why Papasavvas is invited to these shows as an expert when he is clearly not. He has never had any ECHR experience, either during his first or his second stint at the Attorney-general’s office and he has never done anything of note professionally.
The only matter in which he has a proven track record is marketing himself as a great legal mind and benefiting from presidential rusfeti, neither of which qualifies him as an authority on human rights.
ANOTHER self-proclaimed expert, who has benefited from presidential rusfeti, appeared on television on Wednesday – former Central Bank governor Ttooulis Ttoouli – to enlighten us with his limited economics knowledge.
Ttooulis has been marketing himself as an authority on economics after his term as governor, a post he was appointed to by his buddy Pantelis Kouros during the Clerides presidency. Although not an economist, he was a guest on an otherwise excellent documentary, about the economics of a solution, prepared by Costas Yennaris.
Ttooulis contributed nothing meaningful to the documentary, except to regale us with his anti-settlement propaganda which was based on his anti-Turk prejudices rather than anything resembling an economic argument.
YIORKOS Lillikas also gave his views about the ECHR decision this week on the Lazaros patriotic show. The answer to the problems created by the decision was to boost the morale of refugees, in order to prevent them from going to the pseudo Property Commission, for compensation he said.
We had to help refugees re-discover their appetite for the struggle by giving them hope, said the smart Paphite. Hope for what? Hope for a better tomorrow, hope that they would win the lottery jackpot, hope that God would put money in their bank account, or that Lillikas would liberate the occupied areas?
It is false hope he really meant, but he is too nice and sensitive a guy to hurt the feelings of the poor old refugees by being honest.
DESPITE their economic woes, everyone in Greece is currently talking about the blonde bimbo Dzulia Alexandratou, who recently released a porn DVD that sold out in record time. Her performance is now doing the rounds on the internet and even Cyprus has been gripped by Dzulia-mania.
So much so, that the authoritative Phil had to run a scare story on Friday about the DVD being watched by school kids. It was similar to the ludicrous ‘gypsum from the north found at the Ethnarch’s graveside’ story, which could not be confirmed, but still appeared on the paper’s front page.
According to Phil’s report “teachers have been literally running after students to stop the showing of the banned DVD.” It added: “For several days now, there is panic at several lyceums as many students do not miss the opportunity to watch the pink video on every electronic medium they have at their disposal – on mobile phones, lap-tops even on school PCs – provoking the reaction of the teachers.”
The reporter did not inform us how the teachers reacted.
WE ARE proud to introduce a new occasional feature titled Great Adventures in Zorbas Bakeries. These bakeries have become a big part of our daily life as they are everywhere and we are always popping in to buy a tashinopitta or a litre of milk.
The overwhelming majority of Zorbas chain shop assistants are women from the former Soviet republics. They speak the civilised type of Greek, are always very polite and helpful, and, for some peculiar reason, very short. You rarely see a woman taller than five foot two working in a Zorbas shop.
On one of my visits I bought a ready-made sandwich in an air-tight plastic wrapper and went to the till to pay. I was in an environmentally sensitive mood on that day (do not ask why), so when the assistant reached for a plastic bag to put the sandwich in, I said that I did not want the bag as I would just throw it away as soon as I got back to work.
I was given a disapproving look for my improper thought by the assistant who told me: “You cannot go out on the street holding the sandwich in your hand, mister, it is more proper to put it in the bag.” Had I bought a porn DVD or a sex toy I could understand her concern, but there was no risk of my reputation being destroyed by the indecent exposure on the Nicosia streets of a Zorbas baguette.
I made another attempt at persuading her that the plastic bag was not necessary, but the lady was adamant. “It would be better for you, if it is in a bag,” she said. Her concern for my reputation overcame my half-hearted stand on environmental principle. “What do you want?” I asked.
“I will put it in the bag,” she said avoiding gloating about her small victory and added: “These are our rules.”
“Well why didn’t you say so in the first place? I do not want to violate the Zorbas rules. If these are the rules, I will obey them.” I took the bag with my baguette and left.
