This week in history
THIS week last year, an expat couple were warned that they faced arrest if they ignored a warning to remove a pile of soil they had temporarily dumped on neighbouring land following extensive work to protect their property from flooding. Lesley Greenhill, 44, who lives near the Hideaway Club Hotel on Cemile Bayar Sokak in Edremit with husband Keith, 58, said they had been issued the ultimatum after the angry landowner ordered them to move the mound, claiming that they had damaged olive trees and altered their garden boundary.
Also this week in 2017, Turkish Cypriots were not formally represented at a highlevel conference on Cyprus in Washington DC, it emerged amid a furore over the exclusion. A list of panellists who attended the One Cyprus Now event, organised by the influential Atlantic Council, included Greek Cypriot chief negotiator Andreas Mavroyiannis, UN envoy Espen Barth Eide, top officials from the US State Department and the International Monetary Fund — but no-one from the TRNC.
This week in 2013, a massive blaze at a controversial Lapta rubbish tip forced local residents to quit their homes after thick smoke and ash covered the area. The fire was started by the municipality to remove a build-up of rubbish at the Hurma Sokak dump where residents had repeatedly complained of noise and smells from rotting garbage being tipped at the site which was intended for garden waste only. Mayor Fuat Namsoy had publicly promised the previous year that the so-called “green waste” site would be closed down “within one month” when a new transit facility in the nightclubs area near Kayalar was finished.
This week in 2008, shoppers heading across the Green Line in search of bargains were to come back with twice as much if moves to raise the spending limit to 300 euros were approved. It was believed talks were under way to increase the then spending limit of 135 euros and also to redraft the stalled Direct Trade Regulation, which would have opened new European markets for Turkish Cypriot businesses. Hasan İnce, former chairman of the Cyprus Turkish Chamber of Commerce, confirmed that the European Union was exploring changes to both the spending limit and the trade regulation.
This week in 1998, a court victory for Turkey in the US was being viewed as a TRNC land-rights milestone that would paving the way to help solve the Cyprus problem. A Federal Court judge ruled, after a four-year battle by Greek Cypriots, that compensation of $7.5 million could not be considered by the judiciary for alleged “wrongful taking” of land during and after the 1974 Peace Operation.
On this very day, March 10, 1969, James Earl Ray was jailed for 99 years by a court in Memphis, Tennessee, after admitting that he murdered American civil rights leader Martin Luther King. His guilty plea was made on the understanding that he was spared the electric chair. It also brought a swift end to the trial, which otherwise might have lasted weeks.
On March 13, 1961, three men and two women went on trial at the Old Bailey charged with plotting to pass official secrets to the Russians. The trial of the group, which became known as the Portland Spy Ring, lasted about two weeks. At its conclusion, the “Krogers” were revealed to be Morris and Lona Cohen who were wanted in America on spying charges in connection with the Rosenberg case. They were given 20-year sentences.