Respected expat charged and released over Souni wildfire

AN 83-year old British expat was charged and released from police custody yesterday after being arrested on Friday in connection with a wildfire in Souni village.

Leslie Wright, 83, an OBE, was being held at Episkopi police station while British residents in Souni were shocked and outraged over his arrest and subsequent two-day remand.

According to Wright’s lawyer Kyriacos Papachristoforou, Wright was released at around 11am yesterday after being charged for lighting a fire without a permit, the lawyer said.

The elderly expat who neighbours described as a “distinguished civil servant” who served two British Prime Ministers and was also a former president of the Lions Club in Cyprus, was resting at home yesterday.

One neighbour said: “He is physically and mentally exhausted and pretty traumatised.”

It is still not clear what led police to suspect Wright as the instigator of the fire on Friday, which burned some 15 hectares of wild brush.

According to a neighbour on Saturday, the blaze did start behind Wright’s house but not directly behind it, and that it appeared police were going only on hearsay and the testimony of one person who may have told them Wright had burned leaves in his garden in the past.

Wright, who lives with his elderly wife, who is not well, insists he was asleep when the fire broke out at 3am on Friday.

Prosecutors told the court on Saturday that Wright had to be remanded because statements had to be taken from residents in Souni.

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