CMP member slams ‘untrue’ news reports about missing Greek Cypriots
HAKKI Müftüzade, the Turkish Cypriot member of the Committee on Missing Persons (CMP) in Cyprus, has blasted the Greek Cypriot newspaper Phileleftheros for printing “untrue and misleading information”.
Mr Müftüzade wrote in a press release that an article was printed in Phileleftheros’s August 9 issue claiming that five Greek Cypriots had been buried in a plot of land owned by the late Turkish Cypriot leader Dr Fazıl Küçük.
He said that this is untrue and that while excavations conducted on that plot of land, in gardens of the Mevlevi Tekke Museum in Lefkoşa’s walled city, did unearth bodies, the plot of land in question was owned by the Cyprus Foundations Administration (Evkaf), not by Dr Küçük.
Mr Müftüzade pointed out further incorrect information that appeared in the Phileleftheros article, noting that “the number of Greek Cypriots identified and returned to their families [was] also not correct” because “the Committee on Missing Persons [was] not contacted to verify any information”.
Mr Müftüzade clarified that the remains of only four people were found under the Mevlevi Tekke Museum’s gardens, and that the total number of Greek Cypriot missing persons in 1963 was 42 and not 44.
Mr Müftüzade concluded his statement by chastising Phileleftheros, writing that “this article and other articles published in the following days by the same newspaper lack research and are therefore misleading and have information which is untrue”.