Pantelides Arrested in Cyprus Terror Raid

Planned suicide attack on Greek gas rig – police

Nicosia (SPP) – Former Annapolis Mayor Mike Pantelides continued his downward spiral today after he was arrested by Cypriot authorities. Police on the Greek side of the island say that Pantelides was planning a suicide attack on a gas rig making its way to the Aphrodite gas field off the coast of the divided island.

Pantelides, who recently found out he was Turkish, not Greek, in a home DNA test, fled to the Turkish side of the island earlier this year after he left the US in shame when he was caught falsely claiming to be a veteran as he panhandled. Pantelides had been conscripted into the Turkish Cypriot military, but apparently had found himself on the Greek side of the island to plan this mission. It is believed that in his zeal for his newly discovered ethnicity, he turned into an extremist.

Tensions between Turkey and the internationally recognized Cyprus had already been high in part because of the discovery of the new gas field. While other countries recognize the gas field as being part of the country’s maritime Exclusive Economic Zone, the Turkish Republic does not. The Turkish Navy had been blocking the rig’s movement. Pantelides’s alleged plot was seen as an escalation.

“Thankfully we caught the terrorist,” Cyprus’s Chief of Police, Zacharias Chrisostomou, said today at a news conference. “Pantelides was found inside a Baia One Hundred Italian speed boat he had rented. It was packed with semtex, a dangerous explosive, and he had charted out the rig’s location. After questioning, Pantelides fully confessed. He was proud of what he was hoping to do. He indicated that it was a suicide mission. So far, Pantelides has stated that he was acting alone.”

Both the Republic of Turkey and the self-styled Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus have condemned Pantelides’s alleged terror plot. Turkish President Recep Erdoğan issued a press release calling Pantelides’s action a “crime against humanity” while Turkish Cypriot Leader Mustafa Akıncı called it “a devilish plot, of which we had no knowledge.” Commentators in Cyprus and Greece have expressed some skepticism over these denouncements.

Cyprus’s Justice Minister, Ionas Nicolaou, said Pantelides likely will face decades in prison, but indicated that he may be eligible for a prisoner swap allowing him to ultimately serve whatever sentence he receives in a Turkish prison as opposed to a Cypriot one.

The Super Patriot Post will continue to follow this story as it develops.