NICOSIA, Cyprus - A suspect's remorse over his alleged role in the theft of the body of Cyprus' former president led to the corpse's discovery and three arrests, a police official testified Wednesday.
Tassos Papadopoulos' corpse vanished for three months after being dug up from its grave and stolen on Dec. 11. It was found Monday reburied in another grave in a cemetery on Nicosia's southern outskirts in what the Justice Minister Loucas Louca said was a case of bodysnatching for financial gain.
Senior police official Yiannakis Charalambous told the court that one of the suspects, a 31-year-old Indian national, admitted to interrogators that he contacted Papadopoulos' family and offered to say where his body was in exchange for cash in a bid to start a new life abroad.
Charalambous said the suspect disclosed the corpse's location but received no money, despite his repeated attempts to secure the cash.
The Indian man also named a 48-year-old Cypriot and his 44-year-old brother - a convicted felon serving life in prison - as the men who recruited him to help exhume and conceal the body. The suspect told investigators that the convicted man had ordered the theft.
But Charalambous offered no explanation as to why the suspects plotted to steal the body in the first place.
The 31-year-old Indian and 48-year-old Cypriot appeared in court for a custody hearing. Despite their appearance, they were not named, and were only referred to as "suspect 1" and "suspect 2."
The court ruled that there was "reasonable suspicion" to justify holding the two suspects for eight days to assist the investigation on 11 charges including extortion, conspiracy to commit a felony and insult to religion.
The convicted felon did not appear in court, but faces similar charges.
Although the justice minister has said the motive behind the bodysnatching was ransom, Papadopoulos family spokesmen have insisted no ransom demand was made.
Speaking to The Associated Press on Wednesday, one of the spokesmen, Chrysis Pantelides, repeated his denial that any ransom was demanded from the family. But he did say the family had talked with an individual about "reward money" for information on the corpse's location - money which was never paid.
Charalambous said the Indian suspect told investigators that he acted as a lookout on the night of Dec. 11, while the 48-year-old Cypriot man exhumed Papadopoulos's body from a cemetery in the Nicosia suburb of Deftera.
The suspects then allegedly loaded the corpse in the back of a pickup truck and drove it to another cemetery several miles (kilometres) away where they reburied it in another grave.
The suspect said he was paid $270 (C200) and promised "more."
But Charalambous said a guilty conscience drove him to call the Papadopoulos family on Monday, offering them the corpse's location for an undisclosed amount of money and a chance at a fresh start abroad.
The suspect later met with Papadopoulos family members and gave them the location, but received no money in return.
Speaking through a translator, the Indian man denied ever threatening the family, saying that he only "told them the truth."