Turkish Cypriot pleads innocence to icon smuggling

By Martin Hellicar

A TURKISH Cypriot suspected of involvement in icon smuggling from churches in the north was yesterday remanded for a further eight days.

Twenty-two-year-old Ali Can, resident near occupied Famagusta, was arrested in Larnaca on January 12 after accidentally driving over from the north. Police said they found 16 photographs of icons from occupied churches under a rug in the car he was driving, which bore registration plates issued by the occupation regime authorities.

Larnaca District Court heard yesterday that police believed Can was a member of a gang smuggling icons and other religious artifacts from churches in the north to collectors in Germany and Holland.

Investigating officer Theodoros Sergiou told the court that police were working with interpol to track down the suspect’s accomplices. He said Can had admitted he had – under orders from an officer in the occupation forces – taken icons and other religious artifacts from seven churches in the Famagusta district during his military service in the north.

Can said the artifacts were taken to the Ayios Yiannis church in Famagusta which the occupation regime had turned into a museum, the court heard.

“I’m innocent, I have asked the UN to check that the icons in the pictures I have are those in the Ayios Yiannis church and not anywhere else,” Can told the court yesterday.

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.