The case of the kidnapping of two men from the village of Strongylos in August 1974, over which the Supreme Court last week awarded the surviving family of the missing men €100,000, “differentiates” from other cases of missing persons as the pair were kidnapped by Cypriots, the legal service said on Monday.

It said that the two men, named as Loizos Hadjigeorgiou and his son Giorgos, had been kidnapped from their village in the Mesaoria plain on August 15, 1974, with the Supreme Court stating that they “were allegedly kidnapped by other persons – their fellow villagers, who were also citizens of the Republic of Cyprus – and not by members of a military force or the Turkish army”.

As such, the legal service added, their case “substantially and qualitatively differentiates … from the cases of missing persons dating back to the events of the Turkish invasion of 1974 and establishes an increased obligation on the competent authorities” in Cyprus itself, rather than in Turkey.

Those authorities, it said, must “conduct a targeted, specialised and intensive investigation, including the search for any criminal responsibilities at the domestic level to ensure the effective administration of justice in a state governed by the rule of law”.

The men’s relatives had initially filed a lawsuit in 2009 stating the pair had been “abducted and forcibly disappeared by a group of armed Turkish Cypriot villagers, citizens of the Republic [of Cyprus], in the village of Strongylos, during the second phase of the Turkish invasion”.

They said that the abduction occurred “when the village was also occupied and placed under the control of its armed Turkish Cypriot residents”.

In their suit, they argued that the Republic of Cyprus “was negligent towards them, due to its failure to investigate information or testimony at its disposal as to which Turkish Cypriots were involved in the abduction of their relatives and its failure to arrest, interrogate and prosecute them”.

They said that in their efforts to bring about the arrests of those they believe to have been responsible for their relatives’ kidnapping, they had given “signed letters” to the Republic of Cyprus’ authorities, requesting “the arrests of the suspects and their bringing before a court”.

Forcibly disappeared by other citizens of the Republic of Cyprus

On Monday, the legal service pointed out that the Supreme Court’s decision had made extensive reference to Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which states that “everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law”, and said that in not investigating the kidnapping of the two men, the Republic of Cyprus had not fulfilled this obligation.

“It is in this light that the Supreme Court found the conclusion of the court of first instance to be incorrect,” it said, referring to a 2017 ruling which had found against the men’s relatives.

It added that in the case under examination, the indisputable facts clearly demonstrate the disappearance and abduction from their homes of unarmed citizens of the Republic of Cyprus, not soldiers or national guardsmen, who were forcibly disappeared, by other citizens of the Republic of Cyprus, their fellow villagers, not members of any military faction or the Turkish army”.

The perpetrators, it added, had “acted in the midst of a disorderly situation, namely the second phase of the Turkish invasion of 1974, and not in the context of the battlefield or in military operations as soldiers”, while the victims were “civilians, fully subject to the protection of the state”.

“From this, it is evident that this was not an incident in the midst of hostilities under the law of war, nor was it a matter of losses in a military conflict or of acts consistent with jus in bello, but of the violent disappearance of civilians by armed citizens, their fellow villagers,” it said. Jus in bello is the law which regulates how a war is fought.