Murder raises serious security issues

MONDAY’S murder of a Press and Information Office (PIO) employee has raised serious security issues and runs counter to promises from the Justice Ministry, DISY deputy Ionas Nicolaou charged yesterday.

Civil servant Kyriakos Kyriakou, 48, was gunned down on the footsteps of the PIO on Ampellis Street in Nicosia on Monday morning. Government Spokesman Kypros Chrysostomides and Attorney-general Petros Klerides also work at the same building, which was guarded by police officers. The building is also an area that ought to be under heavy surveillane, with the Foreign Ministry, Presidential Palace and the embassies of the Netherlands and Germany all within walking distance.

Speaking to reporters, Nicolaou said he was intensely concerned at the way the assailants so easily penetrated the security at the PIO and how easily they managed to make their getaway.

Noting how in recent years more blood had been spilling from an increase in the number of gangland murders, Nicolaou said organised crime on the island had now taken new dimensions in which hit men were roaming around free.

With regards to security in government buildings, Nicoalou said the government didn’t seem to take the dangers seriously enough, adding that airport security also needed to be looked into.

Meanwhile Politis yesterday reported that Kyriacou, who was a close friend of Larnaca club owner Antonis Fanieros, had been telling people how he knew who had killed Pambos Psaras, the Nicosia betting shop owner gunned down in broad daylight on July 1.
The paper added Kyriacou could have been murdered to act as a warning to other crime organisations.

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.