Polycarpos Georgadjis - Assassination

Assassination

A week later, Georkadjis drove to a secret night rendezvous in an open area outside the village of Mia Milia. He asked a close associate to accompany him, but dropped him off some distance from the meeting point and drove on alone. As Georkadjis' car approached another car parked at the meeting point, the occupants of the other car opened fire with automatic weapons. One of them then walked up to Georkadjis' car and delivered a coup de grâce. They then drove off leaving Georkadjis dead at the scene. Fanis Demetriou, the police officer in charge of the investigation quickly found evidence pointing towards the same two Greek officers in Makarios' entourage who had been found to be involved in the Hermes plot. After he reported this to his superiors, Demetriou was ordered off the case. The two particular Greek officers were eventually only questioned several weeks later, at which time they gave identical accounts of their whereabouts on the night of the murder. They both left the island shortly thereafter and never returned.

In the trial of the men in the teams that shot at the President's helicopter, the court noted the leading part Georkadjis played as chief instigator and planner of the attempt, but did not call him to account as he was already deceased.

Georkadjis' widow Fotini married Tassos Papadopoulos, then Minister of Labour, within months of her husband's death. Papadopoulos and Georkadjis had been close friends, and Papadopoulos had been best man at Georkadjis' wedding.

Though Georkadtzis planned and executed an operation to assassinate the President of the Republic, and though his role in this has been acknowledged by the courts, the yearly church service in his memory is attended by prominent figures among the Greek Cypriot political leadership and at least one street has been named after him. A museum honoring the most distinguished aspects of his life is active in his birthplace in Palaichori, formally opened in 2002 by the then President Glafkos Clerides.