He enlisted in the National Guard in 1974, was declared a deserter from his unit, in 1975 he was arrested by the Turks and later registered as prisoners of the Turkish invasion, as a result of which he received an honorary allowance of €1,000 per semester. A second person was also receiving an allowance because he was mistakenly entered on the prisoners' list.
The above cases are two of the eight for which the honorary allowance should not have been paid and which are recorded in a report by the Audit Office. The audit was carried out following a complaint by the Association of Prisoners of War in 1974 and aimed to determine whether the allowances were properly granted or whether there were cases where this was not justified.
As can be seen from the audit, some declared themselves prisoners without being, taking advantage of benefits to which they were not entitled, while for at least two people there is not even evidence that they served during the period of the Turkish invasion.
The Auditor General, Mr. Andreas Papakonstantinou, records that the sample audit highlighted 8 cases (out of 852 benefit recipients) for which, based on the available data, the payment of a benefit does not seem to be justified. He also observes that the number of non-beneficiaries receiving an allowance may be higher given that the control was not exhaustive but was limited to a specific sample.
It is noted, however, that the Ministry of Defense deleted two people from the register of prisoners (attributing their registration to a mistake) and informed the Social Insurance Service in order to stop paying the relevant benefit.
From the comparison of the total of 852 beneficiaries with the entries of the Cyprus Red Cross archive and the Prisoner Registry of the Ministry of Defense, the Audit Office identified 20 cases that were not registered anywhere and 130 cases that were registered in the archive of the Cyprus Red Cross but not in the Prisoner Registry.
As stated in the Report, prisoners of war, and therefore beneficiaries of state aid, are considered those who were registered in the registers of the Red Cross and those who hold a relevant certificate from the Ministry of Defense. The Auditor General does not rule out that some mistakes in the inclusion of people in the ministry's list of prisoners were made intentionally.
From a comparison of the data, the Audit Office identified 150 cases for which prisoner of war benefits are paid but were not found in the archive of the Cyprus Red Cross. It is noted that the Red Cross is considered the most reliable source, given that it recorded the prisoners during their liberation from the Turks.
Out of a total of 150 cases, 77 were dusted off which concerned the Recruitment Office of Nicosia, Kyrenia and Morphou and the following two cases were identified:
♦ A person who enlisted in the National Guard on 21.1.1974, while serving as a conscript, on 12.4.1975 was declared a deserter by his Unit. On 28.4.1975, while he was in a state of desertion, he was arrested by the occupying forces and released on 20.5.1975. The person in question seems to have been wrongly included in the Prisoners' Register, without being entitled since only prisoners of 1974 receive an allowance.
♦ A person (in whose name another person's details were registered) was included in the Prisoners' Register. Although in 1983 the erroneous entries were cancelled, they were inadvertently taken into account in the preparation of the Prisoners' Register of the Ministry of Defence. The Auditor General indicates that the payment of the six-month one-time honorary allowance is not justified.
The Auditor General also finds that several entries in the Military Registers, which relate to the period of the Turkish invasion, were registered after the fact and, in some cases, several years after the events. The Report refers to three people who were declared prisoners and as a result were released from the reserve.
To confirm the data of the Conscription Registers, six entries were selected in the Prisoner Register of the Ministry of Defense of the Ministry of Defense, which, however, were not included in the archive of the Cyprus Red Cross. Following an investigation conducted by the History Directorate of the NGEST, it replied that there is no evidence to confirm captivity in any of these cases.
The Report also states that for 39 of the 77 cases audited, key data were found to be missing in the Military Records, such as the Unit in which the person served during the war, the date of the start of the captivity and/or the date of the end of the captivity.
Finally, it is noted that in addition to the honorary allowance of €1,000 per semester, a monthly honorary allowance of €5.23-€83.68 is also granted, while monthly allowances of €240, €400 and €1,300 for partial, full and institutional care are also granted to various categories of beneficiaries. A total of €8,928,084 was paid in 2025, of which €1,664,000 was allocated to 832 persons who were prisoners of war.
