By Martin Hellicar
THE JUSTICE Ministry yesterday ordered a radical reshuffle at Limassol police headquarters in the wake of the pink slip scandal.
Among those demoted is Limassol police chief Miltiades Neocleous. He starts a new job in the Limassol police headquarters inspectorate on Monday. Replacing Neocleous will be assistant Larnaca police chief Charalambos Koulermos.
The announcement of the personnel changes was seen as an attempt to clean up the Limassol force’s image, tarnished by the recent arrest of three of its officers in connection with alleged corrupt visa practices.
Limassol officers Efstathios Theodorou, Demetris Himonas and Pelopidas Evgeniades were arrested last month following the launch of a police probe into alleged corrupt pink slip practices. Three senior officers were tasked to look into information that police officers and others in positions of power were abating underworld prostitution rackets by providing pink slips for foreign cabaret artistes, some of them forged.
Other senior Limassol officers also felt the impact of yesterday’s image polishing exercise.
Assistant police chief Nicos Stelikos was transferred to the relative backwater of Paphos, to take up an identical position there. Yiannakis Iliades, also an assistant police chief, was downgraded to deputy chief of Limassol port police.
Assistant Paphos police chief Demetrios Christodoulou replaces Stelikos, while George Papageorgiou, head of the Limassol police control centre, replaces Iliades.
Several other, less senior, officers were also shifted yesterday.
Nicolaides refused to comment on his being demotion yesterday, but rumour was rife that he was considering resigning from the force. Reports suggested Nicolaides felt he was being unfairly tarred with the same brush as his three arrested subordinates. A number of other prominent figures are suspected of involvement in the visas scam.
Immigration chief Christodoulos Nicolaides has been charged with accepting bribes to ‘fix’ pink slips for foreign workers.
Also in the dock in connection with the police probe are senior immigration officer Nicos Vakanas, former Disy organisational secretary Andreas Tsangarides and the twin brother of Disy leader Nicos Anastassiades, Bambos.
