Nikos Giorgiades Sampson, president of Cyprus for eight days after a military coup in 1974 overthrew Archbishop Makarios and provoked a Turkish invasion that has divided the Mediterranean island to this day, died on May 9 in a clinic in Nicosia. He was 66.
The cause was cancer, his wife, Vera, said.
Mr. Sampson, a former Greek Cypriot gunman linked to the killing of 20 British servicemen, adopted his surname probably as a disguise when he belonged to the E.O.K.A. guerrilla movement that fought against British rule and for union with Greece. He became president of Cyprus on July 15, 1974, after local military forces led by Greek officers and acting on orders from the military junta in Athens, seized the Presidential Palace and said they had killed Archbishop Makarios.
In fact, the archbishop, discarding his distinctive tall black hat and gown, had slipped unnoticed out a back door and, with United Nations help, reached a British military base, from which he was spirited out of the country.
This one sounds smart!!
May he rest in Peace
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