Cyprus FM: Turkey’s Olgac’s confession should be investigated

Cyprus Foreign Minister Marcos Kyprianou has said that the Turkish actor Attila Olgac’s confession, that he killed ten Greek Cypriots during the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, should be investigated, noting that the fact that he retracted his confession, raises questions.

Speaking here today, Kyprianou pointed out that Turkey has to comply with the European Court of Human Rights decision on the 4th inter-state application of the Republic of Cyprus against Turkey, and to contribute and act with a view to shed lights on the circumstances under which the missing persons have disappeared or killed.

“This is a humanitarian, and not a political issue, and the effort must not be restrained only on the role of the UN Committee on Missing Persons (CMP), which is to identify the remains”, he said.

As regards, Olgac’s decision to retract his confession, Kyprianou said that it raises questions on whether “he did it because he was not saying the truth at first place or because he was afraid of the pressure and realised the seriousness of his confession”.

“Whatever is the case, the confession should be investigated”, he concluded.

The Cypriot government has already decided to raise before the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers Olgac's confession as well as to lodge an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Olgac told a live TV show in Turkey that during the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus he killed ten Greek Cypriots, one of them a 19-year-old soldier, taken prison of war, who was killed in cold blood. Olgac subsequently retracted his confession, claiming he was actually talking about a film scenario.