A CLAIM against insurance firm American Life Insurance Company (ALICO) for some €850,000 linked to the suspicious death in November 1998 of rally driver Vahan Terzian has been thrown out by Nicosia District Court, ten years after first being lodged by Terzian’s brother and sister.
Judge Parparinos ruled that the insurance agreement on which the claim was based had been forged at least in part, and had not been issued by ALICO. The judge also commented on ALICO’s contention that Terzian’s death – when his car went over a cliff and into the sea in the Petra Tou Romiou area, near Paphos – was suicide.
Parparinos said that although he had heard enough evidence – regarding Terzian’s bad financial situation, the attempt to take out the maximum possible number of insurance policies for big amounts in a short space of time, his excellent driving skills – which pointed in that direction, “no sure conclusions can be drawn with this material – only conjecture can be made”.
Following Terzian’s death, his brother and sister – Haig and Monika – lodged an insurance claim with ALICO for CY£1 million (around €1.7 million) on October 20, 1999.
After studying a copy of the policy document presented by lawyers on the siblings’ behalf, ALICO decided that such a policy had never taken out by their late brother. This was reported to the police, who after examining the ALICO document found that it had been forged.
The police also found that a second policy – taken out with Liberty Life Assurance – had also been falsified. The siblings had submitted a claim for CY£2 million (around €3.4 million) on October 22, 1999, based on a policy taken out by Terzian on October 13, 1998.
When the customer copy of the policy was submitted, the company compared it to the original and found that the sum payable had been changed from CY£500,000 (€850,000) to CY£1 million (€1.7 million), and the insurance for personal accidents had also been altered, from CY£500,000 to CY£1 million.
Haig Terzian was arrested in February 2000 after police found copies of the policies at his home, but was released on the same day without being charged. The next day, police arrested Terzian’s insurance agent Dimitris Hadjispyrou – who also represented both Liberty Life and ALICO – for suspected forgery of the insurance policies.
Although Hadjispyrou was said by police to have admitted to being involved in the forgery, the case against him failed on the grounds that the statement he gave to the police was inadmissible because he had been held for too long before it was taken.
A year or so later, the siblings moved a writ against ALICO, claiming CY£500,000 (€850,000).
When asked why the case to consider the claim had taken so long, a source close to the case told the Cyprus Mail that “a big part of the delays in reaching a resolution were due to the plaintiffs. They changed lawyers, they didn’t turn up in court on occasions, they lodged amendments, and so on.”
“You should ask the president of the Supreme Court why it took 10 years to deal with the case – why it takes so long for the justice system to work in this country,” the source added.
