A parliamentary candidate for the Direct Democracy party has confirmed she was convicted and imprisoned in the occupied north following a drugs case in 2017, while stressing that she has a clean criminal record in the Republic of Cyprus.
In statements to philenews, Valerie Tarabay, confirmed the accuracy of a report in the Turkish Cypriot press that described her arrest with 170 grams of cannabis, drug processing equipment and €700 that appeared to derive from drug sales. She and a second person admitted importing a total of 236 grams of cannabis into the occupied north and acting as couriers. A court in the occupied north sentenced both to three years in prison. Tarabay told Philenews she served two years before being released for good behaviour.
Tarabay said she does not recognise the conviction’s legal validity. “We do not recognise the laws in the occupied north because they are not in line with EU law or the laws of the Republic of Cyprus,” she said. “It is true that I was in possession of drugs, but the three-year sentence is not something that stands, since we do not recognise the laws in the occupied north.”
She argued that the sentence was disproportionate. “When I spoke with lawyers from the Republic of Cyprus, they told me that for such an incident I would not have served any sentence,” she said. “I was not protected as a young person who had never had a problem with the law before. I believe the legislation was wrong.”
Tarabay said she had never attempted to conceal the incident. She was 20 at the time of the offence and is now nearly 30. “We grow, I am not the same person,” she said. She added that she had experienced depression as a young person and said protecting young people facing similar struggles was a driving reason behind her candidacy. She said she has never had a problem with the law in any European country or in the Republic of Cyprus.
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