North authorities not looking for Guzelyurtlu’s murderers
SECURITY and relations across the Green Line have become top priorities for authorities investigating the weekend slaying of a Turkish Cypriot businessman, his wife and daughter.
Elmas ‘Guzelyurtlu’ Ali, his 50-year-old wife, Zerrin, and 15-year-old daughter, Ayul were found murdered on the side of the motorway near Larnaca on Sunday, executed in cold blood after being taken in their pyjamas from their home in Nicosia’s south.
Meanwhile, various scenarios have been put forward surrounding the tragic last moments of the family. Speculation on possible suspects behind the gangland-style murder ranges from the Turkish mafia, Turkish secret services (MIT) and, according to one Greek-language daily, even his own security guard.
Turkish Cypriot police said yesterday they are not seeking those involved in the murder of Turkish Cypriot businessman Elmas Guzelyurtlu along with his wife and daughter this weekend.
“The murder happened on the Greek Cypriot side and we have no information regarding the murder except for what we read in the press,” assistant police chief Gunay Ozan told the Cyprus Mail yesterday.
Ozan said Cyprus police had not sought “any cooperation at all” between the police forces north and south of the Green Line. Neither, he added, had Turkish Cypriot police been contacted though the UN.
“Guzelyurtlu had Republic of Cyprus citizenship, and he was killed in the Republic,” he said.
UN Spokesman Brian Kelly confirmed yesterday there had been no application from the Cyprus police requesting help from the north.
“We have been involved in helping to take the bodies back to the north. Other than that we have not been asked for assistance.”
Meanwhile Elmas Guzelyurtlu’s son Mehmet told Turkish Cypriot newspaper Kibris that he had told Greek Cypriot police officials that £300,000 was missing from his father’s house in Agios Dhometios.
Assistant to the chief of police, Sotiris Charalambous, yesterday denied the allegation, adding the police have no information on any money being missing from Guzelyurtlu’s home.
“We have nothing reported to us that money is missing from the house of the victim. We even took a statement from his son and he did not report or state anything saying that money was missing from the house.”
The Minister of Justice Doros Theodorou said the murders highlighted serious security problems especially with the freedom of movement between the north and south of the island. He said that assassins can slip across the ceasefire line with relative ease.
“The occupied areas are a hole in not only the safety of the Cyprus Republic but also the safety of the European Union.
“Crossings involving agents from Turkey coming through the checkpoints have happened before, with one example being the 1994 murder of Theophilos Georgiades [the assassinated chairman of the Cyprus Committee of Solidarity with Kurdistan].
“The other points of limited security are from the checkpoints where we are in control of only two checkpoints and even there we do not have full control of checks whereas there are also another two checkpoints that are not controlled at all by the Cyprus Republic.”
“Police at the moment are still investigating the case and as everyone know who has been passing in and out of the checkpoints because the do not have full control of all of the checkpoints. It is also difficult for them to assume if whether the hit was made by MIT, the Turkish mafia or any other group.”
Government spokesman Kypros Chrysostomides has stated that the recent slaying of the Turkish Cypriots has no political bearing on Cyprus whatsoever.
“It is blatantly clear that the recent event has nothing to do with anything political. The government wants to maintain the free movement within the Cyprus Republic.”
The Minister of Interior Andreas Christou told reporters that Saturday’s murder will have no effect on the relations between Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
“Greeks and Turkish Cypriots have endured enough bitter and useful experiences in the past to realise that this phenomenon will not have an effect on the relationship between the two communities.”
Christou added that he was sceptical about the validity over whether the culprits crossed over from the north.
“I have heard a lot of talk about the security of the island and the checkpoints but I find it hard to believe that the assassins would have crossed over a checkpoint to commit their crime. There are thousands of ways for somebody to enter into the island and commit such an act. Let us not forget that recently we had assassins come in through Larnaca airport and murder people in Paphos.”
