A 36-year-old Israeli man appeared in court in Kyrenia on Thursday after having been arrested the previous day following an Interpol red notice in his name, after he was accused of having committed a murder in Israel.

The man was arrested on Wednesday and the Turkish Cypriot authorities swiftly moved to declare him a persona non grata and issued a warrant for his deportation.

In court on Thursday, police officer Umut Beyazlar explained that he had been identified by officers in Kyrenia.

He said the man had presented a Spanish passport and told the police his name was “Andros Garcia”, but that further examinations found that the passport was fake.

He said the fake Spanish passport had been used by the man to cross from the Republic to the north at the Ayios Dhometios crossing point on May 7.

Judge Zehra Yalkut Bilgec ordered that the man be remanded in custody for two days.

The man is, according to Israeli newspaper the Jerusalem Post, wanted in connection with the murder of a man named Almog Peretz in 2024.

The newspaper wrote on Thursday that the man had also “shot and injured another man and woman” in the same incident, which took place in the Israeli coastal town of Ashdod.

Additionally, it reported that the Israeli police had at the very least a hand to play in the suspect’s arrest incident, stating that the operation was headed by an Israeli police unit.

Meanwhile, chief superintendent Roee Waldman, the highest-ranking officer in the area of Israel in which the murder of Peretz occurred, said her police unit has “worked relentlessly” since 2024 to track the man down.

“Through professional and high-quality evidence gathering, they conducted a cross-border manhunt lasting about a year and four months. Today, we achieved the long-awaited result – the murder suspect was arrested in Cyprus,” she said.

“We are sending a clear and unequivocal message – the long arm of the Israel police will reach anyone, anywhere, and at any time, who commits such a vile crime.”