Syrian man jailed after lying about being husband

A 27-year-old Syrian national was sentenced on Monday to two months in prison in the north for having illegally crossed the Green Line, after the Turkish Cypriot police found he had lied about being the husband of the heavily pregnant 18-year-old mother of two with whom he had crossed.

Both the man and the woman appeared in the military court with the court finding that the man had been “lying in the hope of receiving a shorter sentence”.

The woman was sentenced to 12 days in prison, and then immediately released as she had already served the time in custody, being housed in a student dormitory as she awaited a ruling. She will now be sent onwards to Turkey with her children.

The pair and the children had been apprehended in the north in the early hours of August 25, having illegally crossed from the Republic near the Ledra Palace hotel in Nicosia.