A man described as ‘Azeri’ was still being held by authorities here on Monday on suspicion of espionage and terrorism, although the Cyprus Mail understands the man has not been charged yet.

The man was arrested in the early hours of Saturday; the police press release about the arrest was issued at around 11am on the day.

On the same day, he appeared before a judge who ordered him remanded in police custody for eight days.

Police are tight-lipped about the case, and have said they will release no further information at this time, citing ‘national security’.

Cypriot news outlets reported the suspect is a man of Azeri background and had been arrested in the Zakaki suburb of the coastal city of Limassol.

The suspect is alleged to have had a British RAF military base in nearby Akrotiri under surveillance, as well as Cyprus’s own Andreas Papandreou airbase in Paphos. He had allegedly been monitoring the Akrotiri base since mid-April.

There remained some confusion about the suspect’s background, after Britain’s Commonwealth & Development Office said the man was British and that they were in contact with authorities in Cyprus regarding the arrest.

Citing their sources, media in Cyprus continued referring to the suspect as an ‘Azeri’ without clarifying whether he is of Azeri ethnicity or nationality, or whether he has dual nationality.

Asked about this, a police source told the Cyprus Mail only that the man is ‘Azeri’.

Daily Phileleftheros reports that the suspect “presented himself as a British national and a tourist.”

The paper said two persons have meantime been arrested in Britain, and that authorities – it did not specify of which country – think the man detained in Cyprus was sending them the material he recorded here.

It’s understood that CID leads the investigation. Reports said that authorities here are currently checking with which other persons the suspect may have had contact.

In the man’s possession the police reportedly found a high-resolution Nikon Coolpix  camera with a 125x magnification lens.

Phileleftheros said that last Friday – the day prior to the arrest – the man was spotted near the Andreas Papandreou airbase in Paphos.

According to the paper, this may have had to do with news reports coming out on Friday, to the effect that US transport aircraft and US Marines were expected to touch down at the airbase.

In the early evening of last Friday, Greek publication Hellas Journal had reported that US military transport aircraft had arrived, or were arriving, at the Paphos base, as part of a buildup of US forces amid rising tensions in the Israel-Iran conflict. The report was picked up by other media in Greece.

Also according to Phileleftheros, “physical surveillance conducted since June 2025 by a cooperating service established that the suspect resides in a flat in Zakaki, Limassol, an area neighbouring the British Bases.”

The daily said Cyprus’ anti-terrorism squad made the arrest after receiving highly classified and reliable intelligence from a “cooperating foreign service” on 20 June 2025.

On Saturday, the day of the arrest, Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar posted on social media that a planned attack on Israeli citizens by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had been averted due to co-operation between Israeli and Cypriot security services.

“Thanks to the activity of the Cypriot security authorities, in co-operation with Israeli security services, the terror attack was thwarted,” Sa’ar claimed on X, without elaborating.

Meanwhile in Greece, authorities have arrested an ‘Azeri man’ suspected of espionage on the island of Crete, home to a Nato military base.

Greek authorities are investigating if the 26-year-old was monitoring the base in Souda – a strategic facility for Greece, the United States and Nato in the eastern Mediterranean – and if the case is linked to the recent arrest of the man in Cyprus.

The 26-year-old, arrested on Sunday, had reportedly been staying since June 18 in a hotel near the naval and air force base in western Crete. More than 5,000 photographs and encryption software are said to have been found on a laptop that was seized, along with other digital equipment, from the hotel room.

He was expected to appear before a prosecutor this week.