4 held for Cyprus murder
NICOSIA (AFP) – Turkish-Cypriot police have arrested four Turks on suspicion of involvement in the murder of a fugitive banker and his family in the island’s south, a senior official in the Turkish-occupied north, Ozkan Murat, said on Tuesday. Murat declined to reveal the names of the four while the investigation continues, the Turkish-Cypriot TAK news agency said. The bodies of Elmaz Guzelyurtlu, 52, his wife Zerin, 50, and their 15-year-old daughter were found beside the main Larnaca-Nicosia motorway early on Saturday. They were all still wearing pyjamas and had been shot at close range, prompting Cypriot police to suggest they had been the victims of a Mafia-style hit. «We can’t be a 100 percent sure, but this looks like a settling of old scores, either connected to financial circles or the regime in the occupied north,» Cypriot Justice Minister Doros Theodorou said on Saturday. Guzelyurtlu had been living in the south since 2000 when he fled the north following the collapse of his Everest Bank with debts estimated by the Turkish media at $42 million. The failure of Everest and other banks left many Turkish Cypriots penniless and sparked an economic crisis and civil unrest in the breakaway north.
