The unanimous decision of the Supreme Court, dated September 4, 2026, regarding the case of the abduction and disappearance of Loizos Hatzigeorgiou and his son, Giorgos Hatzigeorgiou, on August 15, 1974, residents of the village of Stroggylos in the Famagusta district, according to the Legal Service.
As stated in a press release from the Legal Service, the divergence stems from the fact that the Supreme Court, based on the facts of this particular case, concluded that the Republic of Cyprus failed to effectively investigate the circumstances of the disappearance and to prosecute the suspects for the abduction/disappearance of Loizos Hatzigeorgiou and his son Giorgos Hatzigeorgiou, whose fate has been unknown since August 15, 1974, since, in the present case, according to the Court, the two missing persons “are alleged to have been abducted by other individuals—their fellow villagers, who were also citizens of the Republic of Cyprus—and not by members of a military force or the Turkish army.”
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It is added that this fact “fundamentally and qualitatively distinguishes the present case from cases of missing persons dating back to the events of the 1974 Turkish invasion and establishes an increased obligation on the part of the competent authorities to conduct a targeted, specialized, and intensive investigation, including the pursuit of any criminal liability at the domestic level to ensure the effective administration of justice in a state governed by the rule of law.”
According to the facts of the lawsuit filed by their relatives in 2009, Loizos and Giorgos Hatzigeorgiou were abducted and forcibly disappeared by a group of armed Turkish Cypriot fellow villagers, citizens of the Republic, in the village of Stroggylos, during the second phase of the Turkish invasion, when the village was captured and placed under the control of armed Turkish Cypriot residents.
As noted, the appellants’ main complaint was that, despite the statements the appellants and their relatives provided to the competent authorities and the signed letters they sent from time to time requesting the arrest of the suspects and their bringing to justice—whom the relatives of the missing persons had identified and named from the outset—the Republic of Cyprus “acted negligently toward them, by failing to investigate information or testimony available to it regarding exactly which Turkish Cypriots were involved in the abduction of their relatives, and by failing to arrest them, interrogate them, and prosecute them.”
The statement notes that the Supreme Court’s decision is of particular legal and general interest, since in it the Justices provide an extensive reference to the extensive case law governing Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (everyone’s right to life) and specifically its procedural aspect, which imposes an ex officio obligation on the state to conduct an official and effective investigation to ascertain the circumstances of a person’s death or disappearance, which is considered an obligation of conduct rather than an obligation of result, given that in certain cases the investigation may not lead to definitive conclusions.
SEE ALSO: €100,000 in compensation awarded to relatives of two missing persons: They were abducted by fellow villagers during the “Black August” of 1974
The Legal Service emphasizes that “it is in this light that the Supreme Court ruled that the trial court’s conclusion—that the Republic of Cyprus could not be held liable under Article 2 of the Convention.”
According to the Justices of the Supreme Court, “in the case at hand, the undisputed facts clearly indicate the disappearance/abduction, from their homes, unarmed civilians of the Republic of Cyprus—and not military personnel or members of the National Guard—who were forcibly separated from other civilians of the Republic of Cyprus, their fellow villagers, who were not members of any military faction or the Turkish army, and who acted in the midst of a chaotic situation, namely during the second phase of the Turkish invasion of 1974, and not within the context of the battlefield or military operations as soldiers. The abducted/disappeared persons constituted a civilian population, fully subject to the protection of the state.”
“In light of the above, it is evident that this was not an incident occurring in the midst of hostilities under the laws of war, nor were these casualties resulting from a military conflict or acts consistent with the principles of “in bello”; rather, they were the forced disappearance of unarmed civilians at the hands of armed civilians, their fellow villagers. “All those involved were citizens of the Republic of Cyprus, not Turkish soldiers or agents of a foreign state,” added the Justices of the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court’s decision overturns the first-instance ruling issued by the Nicosia District Court in 2017, in which “found that there had been no violation of any provision of law or failure to fulfill a duty on the part of the Republic of Cyprus” and awarded compensation to the appellants, who are relatives of the two missing persons, the Legal Service’s statement concludes.
