by Svetlana » Wed Jul 05, 2006 10:37 am
British fugitive threatens to sue Turkish Cypriot authorities for £10 million
By Simon Bahceli
NORTH Cyprus-based British fugitive Gary Robb says he will leave around 500 property investors in the lurch if the Turkish Cypriot authorities do not stick to a deal that secured his return to the island in May.
Robb, who has been on the run from British police since 1996, heads the development of a massive 50-villa Amaranta Valley construction project on abandoned Greek Cypriot land in the Pendadactylos village of Klepini. The venture, however, ran into trouble last year when the Turkish Cypriot authorities froze £10 million sterling worth of Robb’s assets amid accusations that he and lawyer were siphoning their clients’ instalments into Robb’s personal bank account in Thailand. It was also alleged that Robb was involved in laundering money through his bank accounts in north Cyprus and Thailand – allegations deemed so serious by the Turkish Cypriot authorities that they stripped Robb of his ‘TRNC’ citizenship.
Robb denies the charges, and in May this year returned to the island having cut a deal with the authorities that would allow him and his AGA Developments Ltd to complete the Klepini project.
But this weekend, in an interview with a north Cyprus daily, Robb claimed the Turkish Cypriot authorities had still not lifted the freeze on his assets.
“It’s been nearly a year and they have still not done anything. For no reason, they seized my property and funds. They have brought my personal and business life to a standstill,” he said, adding a call on the authorities to either find him guilty or lift the freeze.
Robb said he believed “dark forces” were working against him in the north, and even went as far as accusing the ‘Attorney-general’ Akin Said of obstructing the authorities in processing his case.
“Whenever I try to find out what is happening, they say an investigation is being carried out. But can it be possible that after a year, and when all the bank information is available, that the investigation has still not reached its conclusion? Someone must be doing this deliberately,” Robb said.
Robb warned that if nothing happened soon, he would take the north’s authorities to court to seek damages of up to £10 million sterling.
“These problems have cost me dearly. I want the government to keep the promises it made to me when it brought me back [to the island],” he said, adding: “When I returned, thousands of people were filled with the hope that they would move into their properties; now they face disappointment.”
He now says he will return to Thailand to attend to business he was forced to leave in order to return to settle his problems in Cyprus.
“In the days ahead I will apply to the courts [for permission to leave]. Then I will leave the country. I have no other choice,” he said.
Head of the Building Contractors’ Association Cafer Gurcafer, who is overseeing the continuation of the Amaranta project while investigations into Robb are carried out, told the Cyprus Mail yesterday Robb’s case would be resolved in “within the next few days” and sought to reassure buyers into his Amaranta Village that construction on the project was still going ahead. He believes police in the north will conclude that allegations of theft and money laundering are unfounded.
Gurcafer said yesterday that around 350 of the 500 houses were “half completed”. Around 150, he said, were “very near completion”.
Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2006
what do you think ?
