Turks 'duped passport authorities'

By a Staff Reporter

THE INTERIOR Ministry has been duped into issuing passports to two Turkish nationals claiming to be Turkish Cypriots, a newspaper said yesterday.

Normally only Turkish Cypriots are eligible to apply for the Republic’s passports and must appear in person when making their application, with documentation proving they are in fact Turkish Cypriot and not Turkish nationals.

But in this case, the Turkish applicants presented false documentation pretending to be Turkish Cypriot and did not make a personal appearance. Instead, according to Phileleftheros, a third person made the application on their behalf and was subsequently given the passports in good faith.

When the authorities realised what had happened they asked police to investigate. Immigration officer Giorgos Theodorou said one person has already been arrested and sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment, while the second case is still under investigation.

The newspaper said police discovered that once the Turkish nationals were given the passports they left for England. Their names have now been put on the island’s stop list.

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.