Turkish Cypriot Mesaoria mayor Ahmet Latif was on Monday cleared of all charges by a court in Trikomo after being accused of stealing a water tank from a disused milk factory.

He had been accused in 2020 of stealing a ten-tonne steel tank, which had a market value of 8,000TL (€150), from the roof of the building, located in the Famagusta village of Lysi.

The court found that the accusations bore no truth, and after the verdict was handed down, a teary-eyed Latif gave statements to waiting journalists.

“Please forgive me for not being able to control my tears. My wife and children were subjected to all sorts of insults. There is so much to say, but local governments have much more important things to do regarding services,” he said.

He added that “we were mercilessly subjected to six wasted years in this legal process”, but that now, with his name cleared, “we will continue to work wholeheartedly to create the Mesaoria which everyone will appreciate”.

Later in the day, he told news website Haber Kibris that “the greatest pain I experienced in the six-year trial was the distress inflicted on my family”.

“They asked my children, ‘is your father a warehouse thief?’,” he said.

He had first been elected as the Turkish Cypriot mayor of Lysi in 2010, before winning re-election to the same role in 2014 and 2018. He retained his role after being charged with stealing the water tank in 2020.

In 2022, following reforms to the Turkish Cypriot system of local government which saw municipalities across the island’s northern third merged with one another, he stood for election as mayor of the new Mesaoria municipality and won.

He pointed this out to Haber Kibris, saying, “I was initially elected as mayor by a narrow margin, and then demonstrated the public’s trust even more strongly”.

“I was re-elected after the merger of four municipalities. This situation revealed how the public viewed me,” he said.

He has already been named as his party the CTP’s candidate for the next elections, which will take place on December 27.