Filenews 19 October 2021 - by Michalis Hadjivasilis
After last week's thorough inspection by FBI envoys of the United Nations Sanctions Committee on the plane stationed in Paphos for its possible involvement in the transfer of weapons to Libya, the aircraft was released.
The Chief of Police, Stelios Papatheodorou, asked for guidance from the Legal Service on what should be done. The Legal Service has indicated that as long as the investigations have been completed and the experts do not ask for its further retention, then there is no need for it to continue to be grounded. Following this development yesterday, the aircraft was released and its 24-hour guarding by the Police, which had begun about a month ago, was terminated, after being requested by the United Nations.
Thus, as mentioned in "F", the aircraft is free to be transported anywhere, while investigations continue on the objects and documents received from it. At the suggestion of the FBI experts who came from the U.S., Cypriot police officers of the I.E. Headquarters and experts received from the plane documents, flight plans, its navigation system, gunpowder residues, etc., in order to determine whether it was actually used in the transport of weapons to Libya in violation of the embargo imposed by the Security Council. As "F" wrote, small alterations were detected on the vessel, but it is being investigated whether these are related to the transport of weapons. The experts in Cyprus will prepare a report with their findings which they will send to the FBI experts and they in turn will prepare their own report to the Sanctions Committee of the Security Council.
It is noted that this plane, according to a United Nations report last March, seems to have arrived in Cyprus and specifically at Larnaka airport in 2019. It was then transferred to Paphos airport, where it was parked in a special warehouse which is rented.
Yesterday, police spokesman Christos Andreou said that there is a request for legal assistance from the authorities of the United States and the United Nations which was executed yesterday by the investigators of the Cyprus Police in cooperation with other competent services and in the presence of the investigators of the US authorities. The vessel is owned by an American military service company active in the field of developing private air fleets for military missions purposes. This is a 510-G type agricultural process aircraft of Thrush Aircraft.
