‘Graves dug up in UK cemetery’
BRITISH peer Baroness Ece and the Turkish Cypriot leader of London's Enfield Council are spearheading a campaign over fears that interred remains may be being dug up to make way for new burials at the UK’s biggest Turkish Cypriot cemetery.
Police and a leading forensic pathologist are said to have confirmed that some of the bones discovered recently at the Tottenham Park Cemetery were human, and further tests are continuing on others.
Among those expressing concern are TRNC Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Kudret Özersay, who told Cyprus Today: “I have close relatives buried there . . . To see it in such a state is very distressing.
“I have already instructed the TRNC London Representative to take the appropriate initiatives to determine what can be done to help.”
Enfield Council leader Nesil Çalıskan has written to Justice Secretary David Gauke and met Justice Ministry officials last month to urge appointment of an inspector for the privately owned Edmonton graveyard, saying its condition and management were causing “considerable distress and alarm”.
Turkish Cypriot-origin Baroness Ece said yesterday she was “on the verge of” a meeting with the ministry’s undersecretary, Edward Argar, about the “horrifying” state of the cemetery.
She said it had worsened in the seven months since Cyprus Today reported widespread concern about the cemetery, run by Essex-based Badgehurst Ltd, with “an increase in the complaints of visitors there finding bones”.
“The police have confirmed that, following pathology tests, what is being found is actually human bones.
“The cemetery cannot go on like this. I have requested a meeting with the British Justice Minister who has the power to stop burials there.
“We want justice, dignity and respect for our loved ones to be restored.”
The peer, whose own parents and grandparents are buried there, added that the Tottenham Park Cemetery Action Group of which she is a member had been “inundated” with people expressing concern since the issue recently reached the British press.
Some claimed graves had been “disturbed”, and had even “vanished”. She said police were investigating, since “if the claims are true, this would be illegal”.
Scotland Yard said a man had been interviewed under caution as part of its investigation, begun in May after the discovery of bones. More were found on August 29 and “a dismantled human-looking partial skeleton” on September 14.
The cemetery is one of two run by Essex-based Badgehurst Ltd, which charges up to £4,100 per plot. Part of the Edmonton site is leased as an Islamic cemetery.
A spokesman for Badgehurst said they had been “advised by our solicitor to decline to make a statement at this time”.
“However, we can confirm that to the best of our knowledge some bones were found on land not owned or managed by Tottenham Park Cemetery Ltd. The police have advised us that that bones found on land owned and managed by Tottenham Park Cemetery Ltd are those of animals.”