Greek soldier’s remains flown home after DNA identification

THE body of a Greek soldier — the fourth person to be identified from the list of missing persons — was flown home yesterday with full military honours.

At a religious service at the headquarters of the Greek contingent Eldyk, Defence Minster Socrates Hasikos paid tribute to Christos Koularis, an officer in the Greek army killed during the 1974 invasion.

Koularis had been on the official list of missing persons. The list named 1,619 persons as missing, but the identification of his remains now brings to four the number of names struck off the list since the government began DNA testing on remains exhumed from two cemeteries in Nicosia last year.

Hasikos yesterday spoke of the "criminal mistakes and omissions" in 1974, when bodies were dumped in their hundreds into mass graves in the two cemeteries.

Hasikos said the state has taken up the responsibility to find out the fate of all the missing persons so that they could receive the honours they deserved.

Koularis` remains were identified last month along with 14 others who were known to have died in the fighting.

The first person to be identified from the missing list was 16-year old Andreas Kasapis, a Greek Cypriot with American citizenship. His remains were recovered from a grave in the north by a team of US experts.

Last year, when the government began its own exhumations, another 16-year-old Greek Cypriot, Zenon Zenonos from Nicosia, was identified.

The third man to be identified, last month, was Tassos Anastasiou, a 19-year-old national guardsman from Karpasia. His parents died 10 years ago without ever learning his fate.

The government has promised that for the first time a full list of missing persons will be published by the end of this month.