A man appeared in court in northern Nicosia on Sunday after having been arrested for having allegedly driven into the Republic illegally near the village of Louroujina.

Louroujina is the north’s southernmost point and is located near the villages of Lympia and Potamia.

In court on Sunday, police officer Ebrar Kiris said that at around 11.15pm last Wednesday, a black vehicle driving with all its lights off exited the road between Ercan (Tymbou) airport and Louroujina “in a suspicious manner”.

She said the car then disobeyed police instructions to pull over, before driving towards Louroujina and then into the Republic.

With the police having identified the vehicle’s registration plate, they tracked the man down and arrested him on Saturday.

He was remanded in custody for two days.

Unauthorised crossings near Louroujina made headlines earlier in the year after a 24-year-old Pakistani national named Shoaib Khan was shot dead while attempting to enter the Republic near Potamia, with the police’s attempts to stop people crossing leading to firearms being discharged.

Khan was found dead in the Nicosia suburb of Strovolos some hours after the incident, with three cars having been found in various parts of the island with bullet holes in them in the following days.

Police representative Yiannos Yiannakos had said one of the men arrested in the incident’s aftermath had “admitted” to being a member of a smuggling ring, while another man had been arrested in the north.