by Helena Smith - guardian.co.uk
Cyprus has asked Interpol for help in tracing the missing corpse of former president Tassos Papadopoulos amid rumours that bodysnatchers have put out a ransom demand for its return.
With Greek and Turkish Cypriots still stunned by the theft and little headway made by police in the six days since the corpse’s disappearance, authorities said today they had called in Interpol.
“We want to find out more about what motives the criminals might have had, how they might have acted and how we should deal it,” police spokesman Michalis Koutsounodos said . “There is absolutely no trace of the body and we have to evaluate everything.”
Cyprus’s intelligence services are also investigating the case amid concerns that the bizarre affair is affecting sensitive talks to reunite the war-partitioned island.
Papadopoulos, a controversial figure who was president from 2003-2008, died at 74 from lung cancer a year ago to the day before his remains were taken from a cemetery near the divided capital Nicosia.
Under cover of darkness, the raiders shifted a heavy marble slab encasing the tomb and dug through several feet of earth before snatching the corpse from the coffin. Police said they had used lime to cover their tracks in what was soon revealed to be a highly organised crime.
Among supporters of Papadopoulos, a hardliner best known for inciting Greek Cypriots to reject a UN-backed plan to reunify the island in 2004, rumour is rife that Turkish Cypriots are responsible.
The possibility of Romanian grave robbers being behind a ransom demand has also circulated.
“For the moment they are just rumours,” said Koutsounodos. “Papandopoulos’s family has denied that they have received a ransom demand.”
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