"Second Crime-The Office for the Greek Cypriot Missing knew and hid the fact that Costas Menikou was not missing but he was dead,"

Greek Cypriot newspaper Politis, following the case of Costas Menikou, the so called missing Greek Cypriot soldier, has revealed on January 6 that the Greek Cypriot administration knew at least as far back as 1981 that he was buried in the Lakadamia military cemetery in south Cyprus.

Giving the news under the headlines: "Second Crime-The Office for the Greek Cypriot Missing knew and hid the fact that Costas Menikou was not missing but he was dead," Politis said that the 'Office for the Missing' knew that Costas Menikou, who was identified through the DNA tests, was dead and was buried in the Lakadamia military cemetery in 1974 but kept this as a secret and did not inform his family.

Politis also reported that Costas Menikou's case was similar to that of Hristos Koukoularis, a Greek soldier who also died during the conflict in 1974, where last year it was revealed that the Greek Cypriot authorities knew that KouKoularis was dead but his name was kept on the missing list for propaganda purposes.

"From the document, which had secret stamped on it, it can be concluded that, like Hristos Koukoularis, the 'Office for the Missing' knew that Costas Menikou was also buried in the Lakadamia cemetery but kept this as a secret and did not inform his family," Politis said.

Giving explanation about the document, which contained the list of the 180 people buried in the cemetery, Politis revealed that on a written request on 29 October 1991 from Yorgos Sergidis, the head of the 'Office of the Missing' in 1991, Modestos Pentalyotis, the head of the 'Civilian Defence Organisation' of the time, sent a hand delivered file stamped as secret to Sergidis, where Costas Menikou's name was on the third page.

Politis further reported that it had a copy of a statement from a witness (name not revealed) dated 7 October 1981, stating that in 1974 the emergency staff at the Nicosia General Hospital and the military personnel in charge of the hospital drew up a list of the people who were buried in the Lakadamia cemetery.

The statement of the witness said: "The list of the dead people is the same list I have seen at the 'Office of the Missing', which is the document no: 11.02. Amongst the people on the list were Andreas Haralambous, Nicos Sergidis, Lefkos Anastasiades and other people that I could not remember."

Based on this statement of the witness, Politis concluded that the 'Office of the Greek Cypriot Missing' had the list of the 180 people who were buried in Lakadamia since at least 1981, where Costas Menikou is also listed.

All the revelations in the Greek Cypriot media over the last couple of years shows that as the time passes the so-called Greek Cypriot-missing list is withering away. For years the number was kept at 1619 for propaganda proposes but since last year this went down to around 1400. Taking away the 200 Greek-Greek Cypriot soldiers who died in Nicosia during the 1974 conflict, where the Turkish Cypriot side offered to hand them to the Greek Cypriot side during the cease-fire but the Greek Cypriot side refused to take them, the number comes down to 1200.

Also considering the fact that almost 90% of the so-called Greek Cypriot missing were military personnel and the fact that thousands of Greeks and Greek Cypriots were killed during the fighting amongst themselves, the number of the actual missing is probably in tens not in hundreds.

Considering that almost 27 years has past since the 1974 conflict, it is hard to believe that anyone is still alive.

Turkish Cypriots who has gone missing between 1963-1974 are considered deceased by their families, because the Turkish Cypriot side unlike the Greek Cypriot side never used this humanitarian issue as a political propaganda.

Greek Cypriot administration should come clean and tell the truth to the families of the so-called missing.