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HOUSE OF REPUBLIC OF CYPRUS REPRESENTATIVES DR KYRIAKOS HADJIYIANNIS MEMBER OF THE HOUSE __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Removal of remains in the case of the mass murder of 70 missing civilians captured in Ashia on 21 August 1974 1. On 21 August 1974, Turkish soldiers accompanied by Turkish Cypriots, arrested all the men and young boys remaining in the village of Ashia. On the same day, according to testimonies of eyewitnesses, 107 persons were loaded on 3 lorries and under guard by Turkish soldiers were driven to the Turkish quarter of Nicosia, Pavlides garage. The Turkish Cypriot police in charge of Pavlides garage selected 37 persons, below the age of 50, who were detained in the said garage. The remaining 70 civilians were not detained and orders were given to their guards to return them to Ashia, apparently due to their advance age but since then are considered to be missing persons. 2. In 2009, the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus (CMP) conducted a search in the Ornithi area on the outskirts of Afania village, situated about 4 km west of Ashia. Four burial sites were disinterred, two of which were water wells and the sites of mass graves. The remains identified by DNA testing in those two mass graves has confirmed that they belong to the list of 70 civilians who were captured in Ashia on 21 August 1974. 3. Other evidence that emerged from the search in the Ornithi area was that the two mass graves had been previously exhumed. The human remains were removed and transferred elsewhere, apparently in an effort to hide the evidence of a mass murder. The CMP managed to recover only seven complete or nearly complete skeletons.For the remaining missing persons in the two mass graves, only a very small number of bones or bone fragments have been discovered. 4. The findings from the disinterment conducted by the CMP gave uncontested evidence that the disappearance of the remains from the mass graves in the Ornithi area was a result of a large scale operation which was conducted in an organised manner that entailed the use of heavy machinery, trucks and most likely many people working for days at a small distance House of Representatives 000 Kokkinou Patroklou Str. 5523 Dasaki Achnas, Ammochostos, Cyprus Mobile: +357 99592323 Tel.:: +357 23 828 700 Fax: +357 23 828 702 Email: [email protected] HOUSE OF REPUBLIC OF CYPRUS REPRESENTATIVES DR KYRIAKOS HADJIYIANNIS MEMBER OF THE HOUSE __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ from the village of Afaniaand the huge army base in Ashia. There is no doubt that it was conducted under the initiative or at least with the full knowledge of the Turkish Army. Therefore, they must have clear knowledge of the history and whereabouts of the transferred remains. It is clear that this strategy was planned and executed at a very high level and the intent was to eradicate the evidence of war crimes committed by the Turkish army in Cyprus in the summer of 1974. 5. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), in examining the issue of the missing persons, has found Turkey responsible of violating fundamental articles of the European Convention on Human Rights. In its judgment on 10 May 2001, at the Fourth Inter-state Application of Cyprus v. Turkey (Application no.25781/1994), the Court held that there had been continuing violations by Turkey of Articles 2, 3 and 5 of the Convention concerning the right to life, liberty and security and prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment. Turkey was found to have failed to conduct an effective investigation into the fate of the Greek Cypriot missing persons who disappeared in life threatening circumstances or were in Turkish custody at the time of their disappearance. It also held that Turkey’s silence in the face of the real concerns of the relatives of the missing amounted to inhuman treatment. 6. The ECtHR delivered on 18/09/2009 its judgment in the case of ''Varnava and Others v. Turkey'', relating to eighteen Greek Cypriots, nine of whom are missing persons since the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus. In its judgment, the Court found Turkey responsible for “the continuing violation of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights on account of Turkey’s failure to effectively investigate the fate of the nine men who disappeared in 1974”. The Court announced that there was a violation of Article 3, noting that the treatment to which the relatives of the missing persons were subjected “could only be categorised as inhuman treatment”. 7. The organized exhumation and removal of remains concerning the case of the mass murder of 70 missing civilians captured in Ashia on 21 August 1974 to unknown location, House of Representatives 000 Kokkinou Patroklou Str. 5523 Dasaki Achnas, Ammochostos, Cyprus Mobile: +357 99592323 Tel.:: +357 23 828 700 Fax: +357 23 828 702 Email: [email protected] HOUSE OF REPUBLIC OF CYPRUS REPRESENTATIVES DR KYRIAKOS HADJIYIANNIS MEMBER OF THE HOUSE __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ conducted by the Turkish authorities, violates Turkey’s duty to undertake effective investigation for the disappearance of the Greek Cypriots missing persons in life- threatening circumstances in 1974. The opening of the mass graves and the transport of the remains to an unknown location by Turkish authorities constitutes a complete denial of Turkey’s obligation to investigate effectively the disappearances of the 70 missing civilians during the 1974 military operations. House of Representatives 000 Kokkinou Patroklou Str. 5523 Dasaki Achnas, Ammochostos, Cyprus Mobile: +357 99592323 Tel.:: +357 23 828 700 Fax: +357 23 828 702 Email: [email protected].

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