NICOSIA, Cyprus — Grave robbers stole the corpse of former hard-line Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos, digging up his coffin during a thunderstorm just before the first anniversary of his death, police said Friday.
The body-snatching horrified people in Cyprus and came as the island’s Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders are locked in complex reunification talks that have made limited progress.
Police said the tomb raiders struck late Thursday or early Friday. There was no immediate indication of a motive.
Police spokesman Michalis Katsounotos said three people were detained for questioning but released without charge. He gave no more details.
President Demetris Christofias, who beat Papadopoulos in March 2008 elections, urged Cypriots “to remain calm in the face of this provocative act.”
“This is an unacceptable, unholy, unethical and condemnable act that damages our tradition, our culture and our respect toward the dead,” Christofias said.
The robbers had removed a heavy marble plaque from on top of the grave, police said, digging down to the coffin and taking the body of Papadopoulos, who died of lung cancer Dec. 12, 2008, at 74.
Papadopoulos served as president from 2003 to 2008, ushering the ethnically divided island into the European Union in 2004. He was a central figure of Cypriot politics for decades.
