Police in dawn raid on Fanieros club

POLICE carried out a dawn raid on Antonis Fanieros’ Larnaca club yesterday, provoking a public outburst from the owner.

Officers of the crime prevention unit descended on the club at around 5am and uncovered what they said was evidence of gambling activity. Fanieros, 58, and 10 other men who were in the club at the time were all arrested. They were later charged with illegal gambling and released.

Fanieros, who survived a machine-gun attack outside his club in May 1997, claimed he was being singled out by police.

“The law in Cyprus exists only for Fanieros,” he yelled, addressing himself to the TV crews that had arrived on the scene. “There is an undeclared war against me going on right now,” he said.

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.