Records supporting the inclusion of some people on Cyprus’s list of 1974 prisoners of war have been destroyed, the Audit Office told the House Refugees Committee. The committee also heard from the Association of Prisoners of War that some men who failed to report for duty during the Turkish invasion later obtained prisoner status to avoid a military court.
Akis Kikas, a member of the Audit Office’s management team, said that when auditors asked for the documents behind some entries on the list of people receiving the prisoner-of-war allowance, they were told the records had been destroyed because the minimum period for keeping them had passed.
Several of the 130 people declared prisoners who did not appear on the Red Cross list were registered much later, in the 1990s or 2000s, he said. “As an auditor I cannot confirm that the later registrations were substantiated,” Kikas told the committee.
He said each conscript’s service record was kept in military registers, but the official registers of some units were left behind in areas that came under Turkish occupation during the invasion.
Parliament member Zacharias Koulias noted that no allowances existed when the registrations were made, so there was no reason to claim prisoner status for financial gain. Kikas pointed to another incentive: former prisoners were exempt from reserve duty.
A board member of the Association of Prisoners of War said the main incentive at the time was not financial but the threat of a military court for those who did not report.
According to the board member, some men who were called up in 1974 and did not report later asked officers to sign statements that they had fought in the war. They then filed the documents with the military recruitment office and were registered as prisoners. As a result, they also avoided reserve duty, the board member said.
Association president Vasos Christou said some people had obtained certificates from officers who were not even on the battlefield, or who were in hospital at the time, wounded during the coup. He said there was evidence and that he personally knew of three such cases.
Claims of political intervention
Christou also told the committee that two people who were not entitled had told the association they were helped by two parties, one small and one large, to get onto the list of missing persons. They held only certificates showing they had been enclaved, he said, and did not appear in either the Red Cross or the Defence Ministry registers.
Politicians approached them and offered to help, Christou said, adding that he did not know how they did so.
Asked by Koulias whether the two were still enclaved, he said they had been enclaved at the time and held Red Cross certification, which they presented to the Social Insurance Services. They then began receiving the allowance as prisoners, although they were not, and are still receiving it, he said. He said he had passed their details to the relevant authorities.
Christou has also written to the Chief of Police about the matter and is expected to name the politicians who allegedly helped at least two people onto the list of allowance recipients. The two cases are unrelated to the possible desertion cases.
Register discrepancies
Kikas also pointed to weaknesses in communication between the Ministry of Defence and the Social Insurance Services, to which prisoner records were passed. The National Guard’s register differs from the social insurance register, he said, and some entries there are of unknown origin.
Nobody could explain how some names were included on the social insurance list, he said, which raised concerns, as did the fact that some cases were initially rejected and later approved. The auditors could not obtain a satisfactory explanation of who made the entries.
The Auditor General has found at least six people receiving the honorary prisoner-of-war allowance without justification. The allowance is 2,000 euros a year.
