A Cypriot Marriage of Egyptian Hell

"Most of the media painted a picture of romance in which a man was trying to reach out to his estranged wife. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. They would have a different opinion if they knew what he was really like."
"It was a marriage of hell with threats, beatings, torture and fear. He was a man who knew how to inflict fear and to create misery around him. He was unbalanced and a scary person."
"This man never cared for his children for one minute, either when he lived here or when he went away. He only offered pain, misery and terror. And even now when he’s in police custody, my children and I are afraid."
Marina Paraschou, Cyprus

EgyptAir plane hijacking suspect Seif Eddin Mustafa, second left, is escorted by
Cyprus police officers as he leaves a court after a remand hearing as authorities
investigate him on charges including hijacking, illegal possession of explosives
and abduction in the Cypriot coastal town of Larnaca Wednesday, March 30, 2016
(AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

Authorities in Cyprus are still attempting to determine how it was that Egyptian Seif Mustafa was able to pass the fake explosives belt he wore through airport security in Egypt. They have asked the assistance of Interpol. Egyptian authorities would prefer this matter to be ignored altogether. The question of security at Egyptian airports has its uncomfortable reference in the passenger jet that exploded en route from the Egyptian Sinai to St.Petersburg with all lives on board lost.

It seems that the man arrested for hijacking an EgyptAir plane heading to Cyprus is not the mentally addled innocent he has been made out to be by Cypriot authorities who jokingly referred to him as a love-lost man missing his wife and setting out to be reunited with her. Whatever his true intentions were it was not to be reunited with a woman who loathed and feared him and whom he himself had little interest in, as a husband and the father of their children.

He was, according to his ex-wife, an abusive drug addict who gloatingly helped to carry out a death trap for three Israeli soldiers as a member of a Palestinian terrorist group. After Seif Eldin Mustafa, 59, made his demands of Cypriot authorities, he was taken into custody once the passengers of the plane were released after a long standoff with police led to his surrender. Which was when he was being portrayed as a love-lost naif.


Marina Paraschou described her ex-husband as a "fanatical" supporter of Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization, who had bragged that he had taken part in the killing of three Israeli soldiers and later spent four years in a Syrian prison. They were married in 1985 when she was 20, and divorced five years later. Contact had been made since then once only when she called to let him know that their teenage daughter of the four children they had together had been killed in a car accident.

Ms. Paraschou recalled bitterly what his response had been: "What do I care? It doesn’t matter she was 
killed", he had said. They had lived together in her parents' home, she said. Her ex-husband had never
worked and when he was unable to support his drug habit, he beat their children. The marriage, she
said, was "the darkest period in my life".

An EgyptAir Airbus A-320 sits on the tarmac of Larnaca airport after it was hijacked and diverted to Cyprus on March 29, 2016 (AFP/BEHROUZ MEHRI)

After their divorce he went to live in Egypt and four years later was imprisoned for forgery and fraud. He broke out of prison during the 2011 Egyptian revolution that had brought former President Hosni Mubarak into prison. And while Cypriot officials described the man as "psychologically unstable", a man who had demanded the release of 63 female dissidents from Egyptian imprisonment, the ordeal ended finally with the man's arrest and passengers and crew safely released.

According to the Egyptian minister of the interior the man had a long criminal record stretching back to 1988. And in Cyprus he had been convicted on six counts of passport forgery, handed a suspended sentence and deported to Egypt on the basis of domestic violence charges brought by his ex-wife. Using an assume Qatari identity he re-entered Cyprus, and was then once again deported back to Egypt in 1990. It seems neither Cyprus nor his ex-wife can rid themselves of this human pestilence.

Little wonder, given his track record as a miserable, violent and wretched human being that Ms. Paraschou and her children are fearful of this man, so much so that even his temporary return to prison is no reassurance to them that they can be shut of his sociopathic attentions.

Iranian Tentacles of Terrorism

"No one can yet say whether this case is connected with a possible planned terrorist act or not."
Cypriot Justice Minister Ionas Nicolaou

"This is a case which pertains to the security of the state and public disclosure could possibly adversely affect those interests."
Cypriot public prosecutor

"We are aware of media reports of an individual arrested in possession of a Canadian passport."
"Consular officials are in touch with local authorities. To protect the privacy of individuals concerned, further details on this case cannot be released."
Amy Mills, spokesperson, Department of Foreign Affairs, Ottawa

Lebanese supporters of Shi'ite Hezbollah movement gather in the southern town of Nabatiyeh on May 24, 2015, to watch a televised address by Hassan Nasrallah. Photo by AFP

The terrorist group that has made Lebanon its home base, with elected officials in the Lebanese parliament, a Lebanese Shiite movement that was designed and formed with the considerable assistance and inspiration of the Islamic Republic of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, has succeeded in infiltrating Canada, just as Hamas ruling Gaza, has found a place in Canada among their supporters who have immigrated to Canada, holding Canadian passports.

Fundraising among supportive Canadians helps fuel their terrorist activities, as does their involvement in organized crime, in smuggling operations of weapons, drugs and illegal cigarettes. Just as the Taliban profits from poppy-growing in Afghanistan to fund their violent Islamist agendas, so too do these Islamist terrorist groups, whether Sunni or Shiite, turn to criminal activities for their operating costs.

A Lebanese man holding a Canadian passport has most recently been detained on the Island of Cyprus. The suspect only recently arrived on Cyprus, renting a house in whose basement was discovered ammonium nitrate fertilizer, famously used for explosives. Two tonnes of ammonium nitrate which were stored in 67,000 packages packed into 420 boxes were discovered along with 10,000 euros in cash.

Cypriot police cordon off the house of a Lebanese man holding a Canadian passport in the Cypriot coastal city of Larnaca where more than 400 boxes of ammonium nitrate -- a fertiliser that when mixed with other substances can be used to make explosives -- was discovered   (IAKOVOS HATZISTAVROU/AFP/Getty Images)

The island is a well-known and popular destination for Israeli tourists. Israel maintains an embassy in Nicosia. Cypriot intelligence authorities conveyed to Israel's defence establishment that it is their belief Cyprus was meant to become a "point of export" for attacks to take place in Europe targeting Israeli and Jewish sites, including synagogues. According to a source within the IDF, Hezbollah may be the contractor behind the terrorist plan but "it is Iran ... behind the funding and training.

"This is a terror infrastructure ready to strike the moment it is given a chance, like the one in Burgas", they said, referencing a 2012 terror attack attributed to Hezbollah that killed five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian driver at the Black Sea city of Burgas. "This is additional proof of Iran's involvement in terror and the infrastructure of operatives, instructors and funders it provides".

Two years earlier a Cyprus court tried and convicted a dual Swedish Lebanese citizen for being part of a plot to attack Israeli tourists in Cyprus. Hossam Taleb Yaacoub had himself testified to being a paid member of Hezbollah. And it was a Lebanese-Canadian, Hassan El-Hajj Hassan who was identified as a key suspect in the 2012 Hezbollah-linked bus bombing in Bulgaria that killed five Israeli tourists.

He is believed to be in Lebanon. He was added to the U.S. State Department's list of 'Specially Designated Global Terrorists'. The Islamic Republic of Iran has its signature behind all of Hezbollah's terrorist activities aimed at killing Israelis or Jews. Iran uses its proxy terrorist militia as a support for Syria's Baathist government of mass murdering President al-Assad. Iraq is being defended against the equally atrocious attacks by Sunni Islamists like al-Nusra and Islamic State by Shiite militias loyal to Iran.

The factions are busy attacking one another and on the sidelines innocent civilians desperate to escape the bloodbaths each bring to the Middle East. But all the action that takes place in that misbegotten part of the world and in south Asia in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Burma and Bangladesh, just doesn't suffice to satisfy the martyrdom-complex blood-lust of Hezbollah, reaching out to Europe and the West for other victims as well.

At the behest and obey instructions from Iran. The very country that insists its goal in succeeding with its nuclear experimentation and production is solely for peaceful purposes.

Turkey ordered to pay 90m euros over Cyprus invasion

BBC News online -- 12 May 2014

The Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 led to the island's partition

Turkey must pay 90m euros (£73m; $123m) in damages over its 1974 invasion of Cyprus, according to a decision by the European Court of Human Rights.

The judgement is one of the largest ever ordered by the court.

It said the damages were compensation for losses endured during the invasion and in the subsequent partition.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkey invaded the north in response to a military coup on the island which was backed by the government of Greece.

Since then, the northern third has been mainly inhabited by Turkish Cypriots and the southern two-thirds by Greek Cypriots.

In Monday's ruling, the European Court of Human Rights found that Turkey was still liable for damages, despite the passage of time.

The court ruled that Turkey should pay 30m euros for the suffering endured by relatives of people who had gone missing during the invasion.

It ordered Turkey to pay a further 60m euros for the suffering of Greek Cypriots who live in the Karpas peninsula - an enclave within northern Cyprus.

Turkey has not always complied with previous rulings by the body, Europe's top court of human rights.

Turkey still has around 30,000 troops stationed on the island, and it is the only country that recognises northern Cyprus as a separate entity.

UN peacekeeping forces estimate that 165,000 Greek Cypriots fled or were expelled from the north, and 45,000 Turkish Cypriots from the south, although the parties to the conflict say the figures are higher.

Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders are engaged in a new round of talks aimed at reconciling differences and reuniting the island