Announcements by political parties insinuating a police cover-up in the case of the death of the 24-year-old Pakistani national, are premature and utterly unsubstantiated, Justice Minister Marios Hartsiotis said on Monday.
Meanwhile, key details of the case are being rapidly elucidated, including the ruling out of the man having been transferred at any point in a police vehicle, and evidence that someone had attempted to treat the bullet wound on his shoulder blade.
Hartsiotis, speaking on CyBC’s morning programme, responded to statements made by Disy and Akel and rebutted claims of a cover-up prior to the final findings of the duly ordered investigations, calling the parties’ statements “populist”.
Accusations of organised corruption began when it became known that state pathologist Nicholas Charalambous initially ruled out criminal activity when the 24-year-old’s body was found in a field near Acropolis on January 6.
Four days later when he carried out the autopsy, he identified a 1mm bullet wound on the man’s shoulder blade – which he had initially said had been caused by a stone.
It has since been confirmed that the Pakistani man was killed by police fire, after ballistic tests matched the bullet to a police service weapon.
An as-yet-unanswered piece of the puzzle is how the man’s body ended up in Acropolis, since he had been among a group of third-country nationals attempting to cross the buffer zone in Potamia, where police said they fired four shots at two vehicles, one unregistered and one bearing license plates from the north, according to a report in Philenews on Monday.
The smugglers’ vehicles allegedly charged at the police, with one striking an officer, before fleeing the scene.
According to media reports relaying police information, the body was found around 10pm near Acropolis, two hours after police had shot at the vehicles in the buffer zone.
No blood or genetic material to indicate the body had been transferred across the buffer zone in a police vehicle has surfaced after all three service vehicles were examined, police said.
The scenario of the dead or wounded man having been taken to Acropolis in one of the smugglers’ vehicles and dumped there is being investigated.
According to the police, the man was found naked from the waist up and without blood, indicating someone had attempted to take care of the wound.
Responding to calls for his resignation over the incident—on the heels of a spate of police embarrassments—Hartsiotis said his resignation would not improve matters.
“My focus remains to work with the new police management and to improve the state of the police force,” Hartsiotis said. The minister added that “no police force in the world has been able to completely eliminate corruption.”
He added that he “had not known the depth” of the problems within the service when he took over the portfolio, but he had been aware of the issues, having served in the justice system as a lawyer for years.
Hartsiotis declared himself ready to rid the police of “decades-long pathologies” likening the fight against corruption to the “removal of cancerous tumours” which he said would be carried out “without mercy” for wrongdoers.
The minister defended that correct action had been taken by authorities in response to the unfolding incident, which would bring to light any potential corruption or police malfeasance, noting the investigations underway: an internal police investigation; an independent investigation ordered by the attorney general, assigned to senior state lawyer Ninos Kekkos; and a separate probe ordered by the council of ministers into the conduct of the medical examiner, to be undertaken by agriculture ministry director Andreas Gregoriou.
Political parties, however, have called the appointment of independent investigators drawn from the ranks of the state services dubious and claimed they would compromise the credibility of any findings.
Police had from the start entered into the record both the incident at Potamia, where patrol officers shot at vehicles illegally smuggling migrants, as well as the discovery of the body later, as is the protocol, Hartsiotis said.
Police union Isotita head Nikos Loizides, speaking on the same programme, clarified that per police protocol, when a body is found in a case considered an “unexplained death” public statements are not made by police, until the completion of an autopsy.
His union had been warning of the multiple problems within the police force for years, including incidents of corruption, and the union’s warnings were being vindicated, he added.
“However, it is not a useful response to tar the whole police force with the same brush, and consider all ordinary police officers corrupt, thus undermining public trust in the force,” Loizides said.
He echoed the minister’s sentiments that until the investigations are completed accusations of a police cover-up are unjust.
Police had followed all the required protocols in handling the case, including calling for the firearms of officers involved in the incident to be examined and identifying the bullet lodged in the deceased man’s shoulder blade, he said.
“Rules of engagement exist for how police respond [in dangerous situation],” Loizides also pointed out, giving the example of officers threatened by a criminal with a gun or by a vehicle intent on running them over.
In such cases police are fully within their rights to defend their own lives, Loizides said.
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