Greek Cypriot EOKA fighters to sue Brits over torture

By Patrick Dewhurst
April 14, 2011

VETERAN EOKA members are planning lawsuits against British authorities after the UK High Court revealed secret foreign office files detailing the systematic torture of Kenyans in the 1950s.

The court released the files after four elderly Kenyans sued the British government for their brutal suppression of Mau-Mau rebels, and after a Times investigation the EOKA Veteran’s Association is following suit.

The association claims 14 Cypriots died and hundreds more could have been tortured during interrogations by the British during the 1955-1959 armed struggle against colonial rule. Two of those who died during interrogation were 17.

It is understood that the British government has up to 9,000 documents from 37 colonial administrations, including Cyprus, and the veterans association’s lawyer is now in communication with a London law office.

Former EOKA leader and association head Thassos Sophocleus, 78, told the Times: “We will pursue cases for all those who were tortured. It could be hundreds.”

Sophocleus said: “The truth is we have a similar case to the Kenyans. We are not doing this for the money. It is for the satisfaction of presenting to the international community what the British did to us...instead of giving us our freedom, they tortured and killed us.”

The Times said the existence of Foreign Office files detailing Britain’s brutal response to anti-colonial struggles emerged this month, and that British and Cypriot accounts from the same time document numerous cases of torture on the island.

For example, the Times said, a post-mortem examination on one of the 14 who died in custody, Andreas Panayiotou, 26, found that he had been beaten to death. British police, however, claimed that he had died trying to escape custody: a common cover-up, EOKA veterans say.

Sophocleus, who led a contingent of guerrillas in the Pentadactylos mountains at the age of 24, told the Times that he was tortured for 16 days after his arrest in 1956.

He alleges that his back was flayed with a rope embedded with iron shards and that he was kicked in the head, body and testicles.

Sophocleus was sentenced to life imprisonment for possessing firearms but was released when Cyprus won independence in 1960.
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Helen Ioannides:

Torture of Greek Cypriots was generalised during the uprising, no matter if they were EOKA fighters or not.Only by suspicion and it was enough for anyone to be tortured.Those betrayed, their ordeal never ended.Inspite of all odds the EOKA fighters brought independence and won the respect not only of their people but also the freedom lovers of the world at large.
Britain owes an appology and an obligation of compensation to those still alive.
Melios A Ioannides.