Parents of a 19-year-old Swedish man were finally able to scatter their son’s stolen ashes in Cyprus on New Year’s Day after the repentant thief revealed where they were.
Dennis Bednarz’ parents scattered their son’s ashes in the sea off the coast of Zygi near Limassol after returning from Sweden for a second time.
Kinga and Bartek Bednarz, originally from Poland, but living in Sweden the past 12 years, had their son’s ashes stolen from their car parked outside a restaurant in Governor’s Beach on December 27.
His remains were enclosed in a wooden box which was inside a black backpack. The car was raided as the couple ate in a restaurant.
The family planned to scatter Dennis’s ashes in the sea nearby but returned to Sweden after the theft.
Two days later the ashes were located in a parking lot in the village of Moni, just off the Limassol highway following a tearful phone call from the alleged thief to the mother of the teenager, Kinga.
Three Cypriots were arrested by police in connection with the theft; a 35-year-old woman and two men aged 44 and 33.
The 33-year-old told police that he was the person who sent the mother a text message with information about the whereabouts of the ashes.
There are no reports of the other stolen items being returned.
Kinga in a post on her Facebook account said the thief called her in tears and apologised for the incident. He had initially sent her a text with the location of the box and then called personally to apologise.
She expressed relief over the outcome and thanked police for acting swiftly to recover the ashes while asking the authorities to go easy on the preparators.
“I ask the authorities for mercy on those people! They are not bad!! They just did something stupid. But finally, they returned our son! I hope they will get a chance to have a happy life! We pray for them and we are really grateful”.
Kinga said on Facebook that “although it may sound strange, we really felt sad when we found out that the police had already arrested them… I beg you for mercy for them!”
She said that everyone is entitled to a second chance and “we know that what he did, he did because he has faced many difficulties in his life. He’s got human emotions and a good heart. We have already forgiven them!
She also thanked Cypriots for their solidarity and help in locating her son’s ashes. “Our son may now rest in peace,” she said in her post.
Police had arranged for a boat so the family to go out to sea to scatter their son’s ashes while a Cypriot couple had provided accommodation for the family.
Dennis was killed in a car accident in Sweden this summer and his parents thought Cyprus would be a fitting place to scatter his ashes.
