Fined after reporting his gun missing

A NICOSIA man was yesterday fined €300 after he reported his gun stolen in February last year.
The 41-year-old Kaimakli man, who was effectively punished for reporting the missing rifle, told the judge that he had never expected to find himself in the dock over the incident.
“What should I have done? Not report it? I didn’t know I’d end up accused,” he told Nicosia district judge Charalambos Charalambous.
Charalambous told the father-of-three that he had done well to report the stolen weapon but explained that it was a felony to keep a gun unattended.
The accused said the hunting rifle, which was Russian manufactured, had been in bad condition and he had been planning to take it to be fixed after he got off work that day.
“The thing is someone else can now take it to be fixed,” the judge said.
The incident occurred on February 6 last year. Apparently the accused had placed the gun in the passenger seat of his car and driven to work where he had parked the vehicle in the parking lot without locking it. When he got off work he found the gun was missing and immediately reported it to police. He was subsequently charged himself.
By law failing to keep a firearm in a safe place is an offence with a maximum penalty of six months imprisonment and/or €1,700 fine.

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