A FEW weeks ago a Sunday Mail article, decrying the widespread sale of flick knives and other offensive weapons in shops and kiosks throughout the island, quoted a beaming Protaras shop keeper.
“Don’t worry about getting the knives or swords back to the UK, you can hide them in the bottom of your travel case or suitcase. Cover them with clothes and stuff, and they are never detected,” he said.
There’s one man at Paphos airport who most certainly begs to differ.
“This is what we have picked up this morning,” head of Paphos Airport Security, Chief Inspector George Agathocleous told me, pointing to his desk.
I saw a samurai sword with a forty-centimetre blade, a flick knife, handcuffs and various other lethal-looking implements. “This,” he pointed behind me. “Is the display case we have made for some of the last three months’ finds. Most of them, of course, we destroy. These are just the most dramatic.”
There was an axe – of the ornate type picked up in souvenir shops – knives, daggers, stilettos, retractable steel police nightsticks, brass knuckle dusters, knuckle dusters with blades, Ninja Shuriken, and a whole range of oriental-looking blades and weapons – many of them with at least one razor-sharp edge.
Obviously the Protaras shopkeeper was an optimist.
Most of the would-be smugglers are men between 16 and 25 years old, Agathocleous said. “Some of the weapons are in carry-on luggage, some – today’s sword, for example – in checked.” The law prohibits the carrying of any article made or modified to cause injury to people or property and police and airport security rely on vigilance to detect and confiscate weapons before the possibility of their use.
Do people get aggressive when these items are taken away?
“Sometimes,” Agathocleous shrugged. “People get upset, but we explain tactfully that offensive weapons are prohibited on board the aircraft, and then they usually co-operate.” He went on to explain that all baggage is screened, and that if something suspicious is revealed in a checked bag, the passenger is summoned to open it in police presence.
“So hiding something like this sword under clothing in the bottom of the suitcase doesn’t work at all.”
‘Something suspicious’ is not confined to obvious weapons. Lurking at the top of the display cabinet were two packets of children’s modelling clay of the type that dries hard without firing.
“These showed up in checked baggage,” Agathocleous explained. “The scanning process can also detect explosives, and on the machine, this clay resembled the explosive C4. We called the passenger, who said it was his child’s hobby. We explained the possibility of it being a prohibited substance and gave him the choice of surrendering it, or waiting for the government chemist to make the analysis. He let us have it.”
Children are also screened. A large cardboard box full of plastic guns sat in the corner beside one full of the nails and paper scissors. These are all confiscated and destroyed on a daily basis.
Even less threatening-looking toys sit on the lower shelves of Agathocleous’ office, notably plastic torpedoes used by children in swimming pools or the clear shallows of sandy beaches.
“What’s wrong with these?” I asked.
“According to EU regulations and directives relating to civil aviation security, any toy that simulates a real weapon is banned from aircraft,” answered Agathocleous. “That’s why the guns are confiscated. Some are very realistic.”
But, still, toy swimming torpedoes? “They don’t look like weapons, but they are filled with a substance that, like the modelling clay, closely resembles explosives during screening, and we just cannot take the risk,” he said. I remembered with a chill the countless times that I had been through Israeli security and seen their displays of bombs inside dolls or other innocent looking, every day items.
Our conversation about security on board the aircraft progressed naturally to security within the airport itself. I asked Agathocleous what would happen if one of the ‘young males’ prepared to board an aircraft with a knife decided to resist having his ‘souvenirs’ taken away from him.
“Just watch!” he smiled. He spoke quietly into a walkie-talkie, and in a very short time two armed officers stood in the doorway.
“The Rapid Response Team is a new development here,” he explained. “Armed officers are on duty 24 hours a day. Some patrol with vehicles, some remain discreetly in the airport building. We drill constantly, and they can be summoned within minutes from anywhere within the airport perimeter.”
Fortunately, he said, the team had yet to tackle a serious emergency requiring an armed response – whether from terrorists or a passenger running amok. But if necessary, security at Paphos Airport is ready. Earlier this summer European Union specialists inspected the airport and reported the high level of security at the facility to the European Council. Agathocleous confirmed that this was due to the excellent co-operation between the police and the security team of the Civil Aviation Authority.
Violent crime in Cyprus is nowhere near the levels of many European Union countries, but the proliferation of offensive weapons in the island’s souvenir shops and kiosks make death or serious injury just a stab away. Police hands are tied by current legislation, but at least vigilance by security officers at the airport means that some of the more unorthodox souvenirs of a holiday on Aphrodite’s Island never make it beyond these shores.
I looked around me at the milling crowd in the departures hall: mostly holidaymakers heading home, a few Cypriots off for a break or a business trip. No one looked dangerous, but then, perhaps the most dangerous people never do.
Luckily the airport has the technology to look below the surface, and prove the Protaras kiosk owner wrong.
