A BRITISH property developer who owns a 50 per cent stake in a Cyprus-based company faces immediate deportation on suspicion of buying Greek Cypriot property in occupied northern Cyprus.
The Ministry of Labour and Social Insurance had originally advised the Immigration Department to grant Graham Cockroft, 55, a work permit and to renew his pink slip, in recognition of his status as director of Rockpool Homes Ltd, which provides customers with solar-electric homes.
But according to press reports yesterday, the Ministry then obtained information that Cockroft had brought Greek Cypriot land in the occupied areas and ordered his arrest on August 13.
The Briton has filed an appeal against the deportation order at the Supreme Court, but his lawyer, Doros Kakoullis was yesterday unavailable for comment.
Cockroft told the Cyprus Mail last month that Immigration had asked him to leave the country without explanation, despite a recommendation from the Labour Ministry that he be given a work permit.
He claimed an Immigration official handed him a letter urging him to “make arrangements to leave Cyprus immediately”.
At the same time, Immigration told the Cyprus Mail that Cockroft had already been deported, although the businessman was still resident in Pissouri.
Cockroft was arrested on August 13.
Cockroft moved to Cyprus in 1990 with his ex-wife Margaret. They originally worked for the UK and Italy-based European Property Network (EPN) that sells homes advertised on the Internet.
It was they that put Cyprus on the EPN map. There are currently no homes in the occupied areas advertised on the site.
He has spent the last two years researching the potential market for a solar-powered village on the island, before getting permission from the Central Bank to run Rockpool Homes Ltd in joint-ownership with a Cypriot partner.
Cockroft’s homes have their entire electrical system run on solar energy, through Photo Voltaic (PV) cells installed in the roof.
He had five orders for homes in January and over 700 enquiries from the UK through British advertising. He was expecting the first to be completed by the end of this month.
The firm currently employs nine Cypriots and Cockroft owns the title deeds to his home in Pissouri.
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.
