VELIMIR Ilic, the Serbian Mayor introduced to President Glafcos Clerides in February as Deputy Prime Minister, also managed to convince Cyprus’ ambassador to Belgrade to lay the first stone at a tobacco factory being built in his town.
The government was left red-faced after it emerged that Ilic was not Deputy Prime Minister after all. Ilic is just Mayor of Cacak, a city of 200,000 inhabitants in central Serbia. He also heads the New Serbia party, part of the coalition that overthrew Slobodan Milosevic.
Cacak is the site of a new tobacco factory, being built by Cyprus firm European tobacco.
Ruling DISY deputy Panayiotis Demetriou led a delegation to Cacak last August and held a joint news conference with Ilic to promote the new factory.
Last month, the Cypriot ambassador to Belgrade Stavros Amvrosiou joined Ilic in Cacak to lay the foundation stone for the £30 million European tobacco factory, which will employ up to 700 workers, Serbian media reported.
No representatives of the Serbian government were present at the ceremony.
The Cyprus government has admitted mea culpa over its failure to check Ilic’s credentials when he was introduced to Clerides. Demetriou said last week in defence of Ilic that the Serbian Mayor had been proposed as one of the country’s Deputy Prime Ministers and was merely awaiting his formal appointment.
The Yugoslav embassy, which was not consulted about Ilic’s visit, confirmed on Wednesday that the Serbian Prime Minister did intend to propose Ilic as one of his Deputy Prime Ministers, “upon the finalising of the current procedure in the Assembly of Serbia on the organisation of its ministries”.
Ilic is a controversial figure in Serbia, where he is accused of assaulting a journalist who linked him with international tobacco smuggling involving Cyprus.
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.
