Beating victim testifies against police

MARCOS Papageorgiou, a 29-year-old man from Nicosia, relived the night of his beating by a team of Rapid Reaction Unit (MMAD) members yesterday as he testified before the Criminal Court.

Papageorgiou recognised eight out of ten of the MMAD members who have been charged.

Nine are facing charges of use of undue force and torture, while one is being accused of negligence during duty.

Speaking to the Court of his ordeal, Papageorgiou said that it was this incident that was behind his subsequent decision to move permanently to Argentina.

He said he wanted to be as far away from Cyprus as possible.

‘Desperation’, ‘pain’ and ‘humiliation’ were some of the words he used to describe the feelings he experienced during the incident.

The incident occurred in Nicosia on December 20, 2005, when police stopped Papageorgiou and his friend Yiannis Nicolaou for a routine ID check.

Video footage shot from a high-rise apartment building in the area shows the two students, already handcuffed, being brutally attacked.

The men are repeatedly dragged, thrown on the floor, tossed from the pavement like a sack of potatoes, kicked in the stomach, kneed in the back and stamped on.

Politis newspaper released the video online on March 31, 2006.

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.