‘Masked men threaten Pittokopitis’

THREE hooded men – one of them armed – were waiting outside the Paphos home of DIKO deputy Nicos Pittokopitis when he returned from his office late last night, CyBC reported.

According to the state television channel, Pittokopitis returned from DIKO offices at around 10pm. He told police that he saw a car with the driver’s door open parked outside his house. He asked the two men in the car if they wanted something or were waiting for someone.

One of the two men then told the deputy, apparently in broken Greek, that they were waiting for a friend, but the other immediately pulled out a pistol and placed it on the car seat, CyBC said.

Pittokopitis ran to his car to call police on his mobile phone. As he was doing so, a third hooded man appeared from inside his yard. The third man headed for the car with his accomplices and the three sped off.

The deputy told police the men had been in a rental car and that he had managed to catch the first four letters on the licence plate. Police went to the scene to begin an investigation.

Police said they could not rule out the possibility that the three men were Pontian Greeks, attempting to intimidate the deputy for his outspoken views on the Pontian community in the Paphos area.

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.