Transvestite pardoned

A TRANSVESTITE sentenced to 18 months in prison for fraud has been pardoned after officials could not decide where to house the convict.

After consultations with Attorney-general Alecos Markides, President Glafcos Clerides last Friday pardoned Marios Angelodimou, who prefers to be known as Alexia.

Markides said the case had peculiar circumstances and the decision was made “in the interest of the public, as well as the interest of the prisoner.”

But Markides warned that if convicted for any other crime in the next five years, 35-year-old Alexia would have to serve the full 18-month prison sentence for fraud.

At the beginning of July, Alexia and Paphos resident Emilios Ambousides were found guilty of possession and circulation of forged bank documents and securing credit by false pretences. Ambousides was jailed for 20 months.

Alexia was the first transvestite to be sent to jail in Cyprus and prison authorities were baffled over where to accommodate the convict, who behaves and looks like a woman, but is still legally a man. In the end, they kept the prisoner in the theatre of Nicosia Central Prison until a solution could be found.

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.