Authorities on Friday are continuing to unravel the case of the fatal shooting of a Pakistani national during an anti-smuggling operation in the buffer zone, which spilled over into the Nicosia suburbs.
New questions have arisen as to the true number of shots fired and the number of suspects and smugglers’ vehicles involved in the initial altercation in the buffer-zone-adjacent village of Potamia, as the investigation revealed that there were more than the originally reported four shots fired.
It is now known that at least five shots were fired, while police have said their investigation is focused on attempted murder, which is understood to be of a police officer, and also believe that one suspect had been carrying a gun with this intent.
Earlier, the police had stated that anti-poaching officers had fired four times at two smugglers’ vehicles, which had charged at them and subsequently made an escape, making for the north.
According to the police, three of these shots were fired at the vehicles’ tyres and one in the air, and all the casings had been recovered from the scene.
However, a fifth bullet hole was found on Thursday in a third vehicle – a hire car confirmed as the car in which the 24-year-old Pakistani was driven by a 39-year-old man who has since been arrested from Potamia to the Nicosia suburb of Strovolos.
The identity of the Pakistani national was revealed in court in the north on Friday, with the man arrested at the Kyrenia port on Wednesday appearing for his second hearing.
A Turkish Cypriot police representative informed the court that the man had been named by the Greek Cypriot police as Shoib Khan in a letter sent through the information exchange office.
The Turkish Cypriot authorities had found that Khan had entered the north on November 29, 2021 on a 60-day tourist visa, and had never left through any of the north’s regulated ports of entry.
The police representative also said that the suspect’s car, which was found at the Kyrenia port with a bullet hole in it, had been repainted after the incident, with the paint job having been carried out with the intention of covering the bullet hole.
Additionally, the representative said, a mobile phone was found on the suspect’s person, and police are now attempting to unlock it.
The suspect was handed a further six-day remand.
The 39-year-old suspect who was arrested by the Republic’s police left Khan alive but “complaining of pain”, according to a police representative who spoke court on Thursday.
Khan was found dead in Strovolos shortly after 9pm on the same day with a bullet wound on his back, later confirmed as having been caused by a 9mm bullet fired from a police service weapon.
The 39-year-old was remanded in custody for eight days on Thursday. According to reports, he was known to authorities prior to this case.
The suspect reportedly confessed to having taken Khan to Strovolos. After his arrest, he was escorted by police back to Potamia to point out his precise movements there.
In the course of the hearing, the court heard from Nicosia police chief Yiannos Yiannakos that the bullet which killed Khan and left a hole in the rental car’s back seat had penetrated the deceased man’s liver and heart and ended up in his throat, according to newspaper Phileleftheros.
Yiannakos said that police officers had encountered a pickup truck in the buffer zone, headed for Louroujina, travelling with its headlights off.
Police made their way towards it where they also encountered the rental vehicle approaching from the buffer zone, and which also turned off its lights. Two more cars were at the scene, according to Yiannakos: a Nissan Navara pickup truck and a saloon car, as well as a number of persons who fled on foot when they saw the police coming.
Police attempted to intercept the pickup truck, which reportedly charged at them. One officer shot at its left tyre but the driver managed to escape.
At the same time, Yiannakos said, the hire car fled towards Potamia. The police then tried to intercept the pickup truck, which backed up and then charged towards a police vehicle.
An officer fired once in the air and twice at its tyres. The Nissan Navara rammed into the police car before escaping towards Louroujina, a Turkish Cypriot village next to Potamia which is located in the north.
When the autopsy on Khan’s body was carried out on January 10, four days after his body had been found, medical examiner Nicholas Charalamous was able to determine that the man had died from internal bleeding.
Yiannakos said that it was after this that the link with the incident hours earlier in Potamia was made.
Three Turkish Cypriot suspects, a father and his two sons, whose photos police had made public, 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.
One of the suspects, 31-year-old Coskun Alaslan, has had previous run-ins with Greek Cypriot police, whom he accused of targeting him. It is understood that he is the person police suspect of bearing a weapon with intent to harm an officer.
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