The 39-year-old man who was arrested in connection with the death of a 24-year-old Pakistani national in the Nicosia district village of Potamia appeared in court on Thursday and was remanded in custody for eight days.

In court, police representative Yiannos Yiannakos said the man “appeared to have admitted to his involvement” in the incident, and that the Pakistani national was “in his car” at the time of the incident, and that it was he who had taken him to Strovolos, where his body was found.

Yiannakos added that the suspect had said the Pakistani national was still alive when he left him in Strovolos.

“When questioned verbally, the suspect placed himself in the Potamia incident and stated that the victim was inside his vehicle, and that he then transported him to a field on the edge of Nicosia, and said [the Pakistani national] was alive, walking, but looked like he was drunk,” Yiannakos said.

He went on to say that the Pakistani national was in the north and was “looking for a way” to travel to the Republic without being noticed by the authorities.

As such, he said, he paid €500 to be transported across the Green Line and was picked up by the suspect on January 6 in the buffer zone near Potamia, alongside four other people in a hire car.

He said the car had then been located by the police, who gave chase after the car attempted to escape. The police then started shooting at the car.

After having evaded the police, he said, the car drove towards Nicosia, the Pakistani national sat in the rear seat complaining of pain. A video which was taken as evidence showed that the boot of the car and the seat in which he was sat both had a bullet hole in them.

He said the suspect had then taken the car to a repair shop to have the bullet holes mended.

The repair man, he said, had given a statement on January 8 in which he said the suspect had asked him to repair a hole in the rear of the vehicle. The repair man said he had asked the suspect what caused the hole, and that the suspect had said it had been caused by “iron”.

Yiannakos said the repair man had “realised that something illegal had happened” and had thus told the suspect he would need two days to fix the hole in an attempt to persuade the suspect to leave the vehicle at the repair shop.

However, he said, the suspect insisted that the work be done the same day and was also “confused and stressed”.

He added that the repair man took a photograph of the vehicle and handed it to the police.

He then spoke about the suspect’s arrest, saying that he was found in the underground car park of an apartment building on Kyrenia Street in the Nicosia suburb of Aglandjia on Wednesday.

A search of his person found €455 in cash and a mobile phone, while a subsequent search of his home turned up “other items” and a further €2,380 in cash.

Moving onto other matters related to the case, he said evidence had also emerged against three Turkish Cypriots, earlier named by the police as 62-year-old Halil Alaslan, 31-year-old Coskun Alaslan, and 22-year-old Atilla Alaslan.

He said the trio are “alleged to be smuggling migrants daily through Potamia” using a Nissan Navara pickup truck, which he said was also “involved” in the incident which occurred on January 6.

He added that one of the trio “is armed” and “wants to cause harm” to the anti-poaching unit. The police had said on January 7 that three members of the unit were injured in the incident.

Earlier on Wednesday, the police had said they had requested the cooperation of the bicommunal technical committee on crime, while they had also requested the help of the Turkish Cypriot police through United Nations channels.

Meanwhile, a Turkish Cypriot who was not named on the Republic’s list of wanted people appeared in court in northern Nicosia on Wednesday after having been arrested by the Turkish Cypriot police in connection with the same incident.

He had been caught attempting to leave the island from the Kyrenia port.

At that hearing, Turkish Cypriot police representative Cemil Basri said the man had “given a voluntary statement containing a confession”, and that there was a bullet mark on the right side of the car he was driving when he was arrested.

Basri said work would also be carried out at a bicommunal level to determine the identity of the Pakistani national.

Two of the three wanted Turkish Cypriots publicly denied all wrongdoing on Wednesday after the Republic’s police had said they were wanted in connection with an attempted murder, aiding and abetting an illegal entry into the Republic of Cyprus, and other crimes.

Coskun Alaslan said that on January 6, he was in the eastern Nicosia suburb of Mia Milia with his wife and criticised the media for their willingness to run the story.

He has been arrested by the Turkish Cypriot police on a number of previous occasions, including in 2013 for having stolen a vertical panel saw from a Greek Cypriot business in the nearby town of Athienou.

He was also arrested in 2020 after attempting to smuggle four Nigerian nationals to the Republic in the back of his van.

Additionally, Coskun Alaslan told Yeni Duzen the Republic’s police had personally targeted him due to an incident which had occurred in 2012, wherein Greek Cypriot policemen had crossed the Green Line into Louroujina to chase him but were themselves arrested by the Turkish Cypriot police.

“In 2012, the Greek Cypriot police went after me in my field. That is why they have a grudge against me, because we had three Greek Cypriot police officers caught in the north,” he said.

In that incident, three Greek Cypriot officers had given chase Alaslan, then 19, after he had allegedly failed to stop when requested. He drove into Louroujina and was pursued by them to his house, before the Turkish Cypriot police became aware of the situation and arrested their counterparts.

They appeared in court the following day and were eventually released in a move facilitated by the UN peacekeeping force in Cyprus (Unficyp).

The Pakistani national was found dead in the Nicosia suburb of Strovolos on January 6, but was among a group of third-country nationals attempting to cross the buffer zone in the village of Potamia during an incident in which police said they fired four shots at two vehicles.