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| Courtesy larnacaregion.com |
Had assumed there would be more info today re the gunfight in central Larnaca. And there is, though not necessarily more clarity. The location has been disclosed though - outside the police station. Not that any of the gunshots were down to police fire.
It’s a spot we know well, having spent more than one winter at an apartment hotel, since demolished, kitty corner to the police station. Did at the time accuse the police of cowardice (well no, not to their faces) as they chose to ignore illegal Hollywood style mufflers as the drivers roared past the station, regularly overwhelming the sound track on films we were watching on the top floor of our building with the windows closed. Or maybe the cops were not cowardly, only deaf.
In any case it’s not clear they intervened in the “gun fight”. Nor is it crystal clear that the “violent brawl” featured more than one gun, though there was at least one knife involved. And it seems blood. Four arrest warrants were apparently issued, one for a Cypriot, referred to as the 48 year old. And not difficult to find as he was taken to the hospital (by police?) with injuries. The other three were for foreign nationals who presumably are of unknown ages and therefore can’t be thus identified in the story. They also would seem not to have been found.
But there is a backstory, involving a rather nasty if amateur sounding protection racket, phone calls in broken Greek (hence the assumption of foreign nationals?) and a mysterious car rental operation owner referred to only - though repeatedly - as “the complainant”. Unclear at what point he began his complaining but demands for six or seven thousand euros date back a couple of weeks.
Rather miss the North Cypriot habit of providing the initials of the dramatis personae in crime stories - along with the inevitable ages - as in “23 year old M.K.” Easier to keep track of the narrative.
But then the North is pretty tame crime wise compared to the Republic. Today’s Cyprus Mail also has a story about a man arrested for attempted murder after breaking into an apartment and attacking one of the occupants with a cleaver he picked up in the kitchen. And also in today’s news from the Republic there is the account of a man facing a charge of premeditated murder in the death of his uncle who was “taken to Paphos general hospital with a knife embedded in his abdomen”. The nephew admits the stabbing but denies the premeditated part.
Don’t really regret our quiet backwater, although did always say in the South that while there were plenty of violent crimes the only tourists at risk were those making drunken passes at the girlfriends of local men.
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