Following a rash of suicides, the head of Cyprus’ lone prison has resigned, although he defended his record and complained an economic crisis left him without enough funds to properly operate the facility.
Senior police officer George Tryphonides told The Associated Press on Jan. 14 that he was quitting his post as Acting Prisons Direcdtor effective immediately.
Five inmates have committed suicide since July, but criticism intensified the same day when another inmate took his own life — the third suicide in 17 days.
Justice Minister Ionas Nicolaou announced a string of measures, including Tryphonides’ return to his police duties as chief superintendent, prison guard suspensions, elite police unit patrols inside the facility and setting up a wing for inmates diagnosed with psychological problems.
Nicolaou told lawmakers a day earlier that there were 50 suicide attempts by inmates last year, compared with 35 the previous year and 20 in 2011.
Compounding concern over the suicides was the alleged gang rape of a 23-year-old Romanian inmate over the weekend that prompted an angry warning by President Nicos Anastasiades of “zero tolerance” for prison staff and police who fail in their job or are implicated in wrongdoing.
Tryphonides defended his record, saying he has helped reduce the chronically overcrowded facility’s population from 720 inmates a year ago — some 270 above capacity — to 560 now.
He said prison staff isn’t to blame for the facility’s shortcomings that have accumulated over decades and which remained largely ignored by successive governments.
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