Cyprus ex-president body found after three months

Police spokesman said that DNA identification within hours of the find on Monday night had confirmed it was the missing remains.

NICOSIA, March 9, 2010 (AFP) - Ex-president Tassos Papadopoulos's body was found in another cemetery three months after a grave robbery from his family plot, Cyprus police said on Tuesday, after a tip-off call in "broken Greek."

The discovery in a case which has shocked the island sparked a bizarre dispute between Justice Minister Loucas Louca and the Papadopoulos family over whether a ransom was demanded.

"There was a ransom demand" of the wealthy family, the minister told reporters, without disclosing the amount or when it was made. However, "no ransom was paid."

But family spokesman Chrysis Pantelides, within an hour, phoned in to a state television news programme to deny they had received any such demand and reprimanded the minister.

"The Papadopoulos family did not, and I reiterate did not, receive any kind of demand for a ransom," said an angry Pantelides. "We should all at this moment in time be acting responsibly, especially all those in authority."

The minister, meanwhile, ruled out political motives or the involvement of Turkish Cypriots on the divided island but would give no clues on the identity of the perpetrators because of an ongoing police investigation.

Police spokesman Michalis Katsounotos told state radio that DNA identification within hours of the find on Monday night had confirmed it was the missing remains.

The body was found at a cemetery in a Nicosia suburb, less than five kilometres (three miles) from the robbery site, after an anonymous tip-off from a telephone box, the spokesman said.

He did not confirm media reports that Papadopoulos had been reburied.

Family spokesman Pantelides earlier told reporters that the caller "spoke in broken Greek" and had first telephoned the family who redirected him to the police.

Investigators have sealed off the village phone booth south of Nicosia from which the tip-off originated to collect fingerprints.

President Demetris Christofias, the successor to Papadopoulos as Greek Cypriot leader, joined the family in expressing "relief and satisfaction" over the discovery.

The former head of state's widow, Fotini, read out a statement to the media at the family estate on the outskirts of the capital, and thanked the police.

"The finding of the body of our beloved Tassos has finally put an end to the ordeal which has overwhelmed us for the past three months and has restored calm to our family," she said.

Pantelides said the body, after examination by police and at the state morgue, would be returned to the Papadopoulos cemetery plot near their home for a small private reburial.

Grave robbers stole Papadopoulos's body from inside his coffin on December 11 -- one day before a memorial service was due to be held to mark the first anniversary of the 74-year-old's death from lung cancer.

Police at the time said it would have taken three or four people to remove the heavy 250-kilogram (550-pound) stone slab that covered the tomb.

Greek Cypriot media have been awash with reports that the crime may have been a ransom attempt by a foreign gang as Papadopoulos ran a successful law firm before becoming president and married into the wealthy Leventis family.

But Papadopoulos family members said in January that no ransom demand had been received. "We are completely in the dark," the late president's son Nicholas, an MP since 2006, told AFP at the time.

Police have said the robbery was "deliberate and carefully planned," with the perpetrators taking precautions to cover their tracks, but that they knew of no motive for the macabre raid.

Cyprus sought the help of Interpol, the FBI, Scotland Yard, Greece and Israeli police as it scoured surrounding areas.

Hardliner Papadopoulos was president from 2003 to 2008 and made political enemies during his lifetime. In 2004, he led Greek Cypriots in rejecting a UN plan to reunify the island with the Turkish Cypriots in the north.