Cyprus-Forum.com

[Agios Amvrosios]

IT IS open season on illegal property occupiers in the occupied north as a Greek Cypriot legal blitz has spread fear among EU nationals living there that a court summons is on its way with their name on it.

Using the precedent-setting Orams case as their clarion call, more Greek Cypriots are seeking redress in the courts to stop their property from being sold off to foreigners.

With 20 court summonses having already been served to EU nationals, fear has wafted though the corridors of the Turkish Cypriot regime which warned the United Nations it would arrest on the spot anyone trying to serve a summons.

Nicosia believes the crude Turkish Cypriot response is proof of their mounting anger over court battles they fear would stem the flow of much-needed revenue.

More disconcerting however, is the increasingly bellicose rhetoric in the Turkish Cypriot press. Kibrisli warned of possible "bloodshed and war" if Greek Cypriots encroach on Turkish Cypriot sovereignty.

The latest legal action came yesterday when a refugee family filed a formal complaint against a notorious British property developer they accused of building on their property near the occupied village of Vasilia.

The Iacovou family told reporters they had recently discovered that Unwin Estate Agents had marked off their 13-donum tract of land to build 12 holiday homes that would each come with a Θ90,000 price tag.

George Iacovou said the company and its owner Mark Unwin are responsible for illegally developing 69% of all Greek Cypriot-owned property in Kyrenia District, including in the villages of Lapithos, Karavas, Ayios Georgios and Bellapais.

It’s estimated that 82% of all land in the north is Greek Cypriot-owned, while only 16.5% belongs to Turkish Cypriots.

The family’s lawyer, European Democracy Deputy Christodoulos Taramountas said it still has to get through to both the Turkish Cypriot regime and foreign buyers that they will face the brunt of the law.

Message

"Greek Cypriots will continue to launch legal action against foreigners who illegally hold and use their property in the occupied areas," said Taramountas.

"The Turkish Cypriot leadership must also receive the message loud and clear because it appears to be complicit in these illegal actions...Justice will prevail," he added.

An Unwin spokesman told state TV that such legal action would prove to be a "poison chalice" for Greek Cypriots as Turkish Cypriot ‘government’ would fight back in European courts with its own litigation.

Yesterday also saw a first as the trial of a Turkish Cypriot on charges or exploiting Greek Cypriot property has been set in motion.

The lawyer of a Turkish Cypriot man accused of converting the Famagusta home of Greek Cypriot businessman Panos Ioannides into a restaurant told a Larnaca District Court that his client would appear at his trial.

Officially, Nicosia said it’s up to each Greek Cypriots to size up whether justice would be served by taking Turkish Cypriots to court.

But Interior Minister Andreas Christou offered a coded warning that large-scale legal action could irretrievably damage relations between the two communities.

Christou told state radio of a "difference" between a Turkish Cypriot whom circumstance has forced into a Greek Cypriot home and a foreigner flouting the law to purchase property for their ‘dream holiday home’.

However, most anger is seething within the 7,000-strong expat community of mostly Britons, Germans and Dutch who called the north home.

EU nationals are circling the wagons to thwart legal challenges to what they insist is their rightful property.





Foreigners heard from a team of lawyers at a meeting Wednesday night that a legal counter-attack was the best way to stave off Greek Cypriot law suits.

According to Kibris newspaper, Turkish Cypriot Talat Kursat, American Shelley White and Briton Donald Crawford told about 200 EU nationals at Kyrenia’s Colony Hotel that a London-based legal team was ready to take up the battle.

All that would be needed was an advance of Θ1m sterling to get the ball rolling.

Indicative of just how ugly things could get was the arrest of "Machi" Editor-in-Chief Pambos Mitidis and four other members of his family by Turkish Cypriot ‘police’ for picking roses from the garden of his grandfather’s Karmi coffee shop.

A Turkish Cypriot ‘court’ released Mitidis, his wife, 78-year-old mother, aunt and brother-in-law on Θ200 bail each, paid if they again try to pick flowers within one year.

Mitidis said the family travelled Wednesday to their Karmi home where the American-Italian woman who lives there greeted them warmly "as she always does".

As they left, two family members picked a couple of roses from the garden of the nearby coffee shop.

It was a British woman who took exception to the flower-picking, telling the family not to "interfere with her property".

The rancour didn’t leave unmoved Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat who blasted the law suits as a concerted effort orchestrated by Nicosia to drive his community deeper into economic ‘isolation’.

Talat also accused President Tassos Papadopoulos of using legal means and the island’s EU membership to launch an "attack" against Turkish Cypriots.

He also said his administration would argue in Europe that Greek Cypriot courts have no jurisdiction over cases where an infraction occurred in the north.

Nonsense, said Government Spokesman Kypros Chrysostomides.

"I do not know exactly what Mr. Talat means. If he means that invoking the legitimate right to property is a violation of international law, then I think he is deluded and is doing it on purpose," said Chrysostomides.

The spokesman said Nicosia has no hand in the law suits and that Talat is simply annoyed that property sales in the north have dipped because of all the attention the legal battles have drawn in Cyprus and abroad.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Demetris Christofias appealed to Turkish Cypriots not to "pour fuel into the fire" by warning of mass arrests.

He pleaded with "progressive people and Turkish Cypriot leaders" to put an end to the property exploitation issue if both sides are to reach a mutually acceptable settlement.

"The properties issue goes to the heart of the Cyprus problem. It is one of the most delicate and difficult aspects of the issue," he said.

[Viewpoint]

with all these legal actions proceedings and arrest warrants, does everyone feel the borders should now be closed, so that no summons can be served on unsuspecting TCs and Brits or should the north just arrest anyone who looks suspiscious and about to serve a writ/summonds??? Gonna get real nasty soon.......calm before the storm...

[Kifeas]

with all these legal actions proceedings and arrest warrants, does everyone feel the borders should now be closed, so that no summons can be served on unsuspecting TCs and Brits or should the north just arrest anyone who looks suspiscious and about to serve a writ/summonds??? Gonna get real nasty soon.......calm before the storm...

First of all, before you close the borders, you have to go and ask permission from the 8,000 TCs who cross south for work everyday. I think you will get a very proper answer from them.

[Viewpoint]

Kifeas you know no one will ask them, they will go accross just like the did before April 2003. It wont make any difference for you guys so dont worry about the workers.

[Agios Amvrosios]

Talat also accused President Tassos Papadopoulos of using legal means

Accused of using legal means. How can Talat object to someone exercising her or his individual legal rights?

What legal authority, grounds or power does Talat have to object? The ongoing an continuing prevention of Greek Cypriot, Maronite, Armenian and other Christian refugees from returning to their homes has NO legal basis.

The Exercise of Justice cannot be limited!

[Anglo]

Southern arrest warrant: A paper tiger

Cyprus Today March 26, 2005

The new Greek Cypriot law which the government claims now authorises it to issue European arrest warrants against British and other EU owners of property in the north is itself in breach of the European laws on human rights, says Eupro London director Donald Crawford. ‘It is another cavalier attempt to hijack European laws for their own ends, and just as flawed.’

The Greek Cypriots have increased the penalties for illegally occupying former Greek Cypriot property to two years imprisonment in the hope that it would meet the minimum requirements for a European arrest warrant whereas the previous penalty did not. But Eupro argues that this cannot apply to anyone already owning property because Article 7 of the European human rights laws expressly prohibits retrospective increases in penalties for a past act.

The Greek Cypriots are not introducing a new offence, only a new penalty for the same one as before ‘and that would put them in breach of Article 7 should they try to enforce it retrospectively’, say Donald Crawford. ‘Which means that any such increased penalty could only apply to future buyers, not existing ones. That is not what they say, of course, but nobody should be hoodwinked, Article 7 handcuffs them, not current owners.’

But even for new buyers, the arrest warrant law is of no practical consequence, he says. ‘We have looked at it carefully with our legal team in London and concluded that, in their words, there is only a slim chance that it could be used successfully against the foreign owners of former Greek Cypriot property. Slim chance? In lawyer-speak, that is a horse you would be excesssively unwise to back’.

Under the laws governing the European arrest warrant, the crimes for which it is automatically available and must be enforced are limited to those listed in Article 2(2) — such as rape, arson, terrorism, sabotage, and drug trafficking. ‘What is strikingly absent’, says Eupro, ‘is any reference to living in a pre-1974 Greek Cypriot house in Northern Cyprus, an omission which is perhaps hardly surprising to anyone other than a Greek Cypriot.’

While it is true that under Article 2(4) warrants may be issued for offences other than those listed in Article 2(2) ‘ there is probably no joy for them under this either’, says Eupro. Article 2(4) allows countries to make surrender (of the person arrested) conditional on the offence being an offence under the law of the executing country — known as ‘dual criminality’. But that is not the position in this instance. It is not a crime in Britain for a citizen to buy property in Northern Cyprus.

Eupro legal advisor Martin Kramer, of leading City law firm Addleshaw Goddard, is also dismissive of the Greek Cypriot attempt to use the EU law as a weapon against foreign property owners. ‘Apart from all the other objections, they admit that they are only targeting foreign owners and say it does not apply to Turkish Cypriots. The law must apply to everyone, it has to be blind.’

The other major headache for the south, he says, is Article 4(7)(b). ‘This is because countries do not have to enforce warrants in respect of crimes alleged to have been committed outside the territory of the issuing country and outside the law of the country being asked to carry out the arrest.’

‘Which leaves the south, so far as the property issue is concerned, with yet another empty threat’, says Eupro. ‘These people are always citing the law, but never seem to know what it actually is. As it stands, the only people likely to end up in court over this are the Greek Cypriot government.’

However, what does concern Eupro is the use which the south will make of this for propaganda purposes. ‘We have been here before, with their scaremongering claims about enforcing judgments against property in Britain, for example, and we know what damage they did with that in press stories’, says Donald Crawford. ‘ The aim in both cases is to frighten off buyers and weaken the north’s property market. That is the real purpose here — propaganda. So the more people know about the reality of these EU laws the better.

‘Unfortunately there is nothing one can do to stop them coming up with these malicious and petty legal scams. But they are no more than that. Think of them as wasps. Damned nuisance, but you don’t abandon lunch. You swat them.’

This gives another side to the GC legal argument

(Sorry to copy & paste, I couldn't find a link)

[Main_Source]

‘ The aim in both cases is to frighten off buyers and weaken the north’s property market. That is the real purpose here — propaganda. So the more people know about the reality of these EU laws the better.

No, the aim is to stop these parasites from complicating the the refugee issue

[Alexis]

Although I disagree with the sentiments attached to this new legislation,
the RoC must be seen to do something to combat the disturbing rise
in foreign occupancy of Greek Cypriot refugee land.
It's easy to talk about good will, and the lack of it being shown in this case,
but the abuse shown by the TRNC in encouraging the sale of GC refugee
property to settlers and foreigners (or even TC who are not refugees)
itself lacks good will. It sends the following message to refugees:

"We don't care whether there is a settlement in Cyprus, as far as we
are concerned this property is no longer yours"

The rental of property to TC or even settlers to make a living off is not
the sensitive issue here, it is the total lack of good will shown by
the administration in failing to control the SALE of land to third parties
who will only complicate the issue of refugees and property in the event of a settlement.

[Anglo]

It won't be complicated if all those who are unable to return after 32 years (almost two generations) are given fair compensation. Any land that has not been developed can be given back to the pre-74 owner if they want it. Sounds like the A-plan.

The only thing obstructing a solution are the unrealistic demands of the GC side and the unwilligness to accept a compromise.

[Kifeas]

It won't be complicated if all those who are unable to return after 32 years (almost two generations) are given fair compensation. Any land that has not been developed can be given back to the pre-74 owner if they want it. Sounds like the A-plan.

The only thing obstructing a solution are the unrealistic demands of the GC side and the unwilligness to accept a compromise.

My friend, you have absolutly no clue of what you are talking about!