NEWS

Tombs of three Cyprus archbishops wrecked

Police on Cyprus yesterday detained a 34-year-old man who is believed to have been behind the vandalism of the tombs of three Cyprus archbishops who led the island’s Orthodox church in the 19th and early 20th centuries. A police spokesman told reporters that the suspect had admitted to removing the marble plaques covering the graves of Sophronios III, Kyrillos II and Kyrillos III in a Nicosia cemetery. Police said they arrested the suspect after he visited a Nicosia police station and presented officers with a bag containing human excrement. Earlier in the day, police had been alerted to a fire that had broken out at the cemetery where the archbishops’ remains are buried. Yesterday’s raid came less than two weeks after the stolen corpse of former Cyprus president, Tassos Papadopoulos, was returned. Three men have been detained in connection with that tomb raid.

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