Grave robbers

Police said on Friday they had launched an investigation into the theft of the body of the former Greek Cypriot president Tassos Papadopoulos.

Investigators believe the body was stolen from the Deftera village cemetery in Nicosia either late Thursday night or early Friday morning.

There was no immediate comment from Papadopoulos's family and it is unclear whether any ransom demands have been made.

Papadopoulos died a year ago on Saturday from lung cancer aged 74. He served as president from 2003 until March 2008 and is known for his 2004 rejection of a United Nations reunification blueprint for ethnically divided Cyprus.

The theft was discovered a day before a memorial service marking the first anniversary of Papadopoulos's death.

"I don't know what kind of people would create such a terrible crime and steal a corpse," said Andros Kyprianou, head of the communist AKEL party that leads the Mediterranean island's government.

The current leader of Papadopoulos's centre-right DIKO party, Marios Garoyan, also condemned the theft as a "heinous and terrible crime."

The theft of Papadopoulos's body is reminiscent of the disappearance of the corpse of German billionaire Friedrich Karl Flick from his mausoleum in Austria in 2008.

Austrian police said the thieves had initially demanded a six-million-euro ransom and managed to extract two payments of 100,000 euros ($150,000) from the Flick family.

Following a year-long investigation, police recovered Flick's coffin and body last month in Hungary. Several arrests were made that suggested an international gang was behind the theft.

nk/AFP/AP/Reuters
Editor: Michael Lawton