Assassination of Captain Joseph Lane | |
---|---|
Part of Cyprus Emergency | |
Location | Nicosia, British Cyprus |
Date | 19 January 1956 |
Target | Captain Joseph Lane |
Attack type | Shooting |
Deaths | 1 |
Victim | Captain Joseph Lane |
Perpetrators | EOKA |
Motive |
Captain Joseph Lane was a British soldier assassinated on 19 January 1956 by EOKA militants in the district of Nicosia in Cyprus.
Captain Joseph Lane was a Royal Army Ordnance Corps officer who would usually be in and around the Nicosia area. After EOKA members established his route, on the morning of 19 January 1956, he was shot 5 times in the back and killed by 2 EOKA members who escaped before police arrived. [1] [2]
He was given the Elizabeth Cross in 2017. [3]
Harold Bernard Allen was one of Britain's last official executioners, officiating between 1941 and 1964. He was chief executioner at 41 executions and acted as assistant executioner at 53 others, at various prisons in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands and Cyprus. He acted as assistant executioner for 14 years, mostly to Albert Pierrepoint from 1941 to 1955.
Makarios III was a Greek Cypriot archbishop, primate, statesman and politician who served as the first President of Cyprus between 1960 and July 1974, with a second term between December 1974 and 1977. He was also the Archbishop of the autocephalous Church of Cyprus from 1950 to 1977.
Glafcos Ioannou Clerides was a Cypriot statesman, who served as President of Cyprus in 1974 and from 1993 to 2003.
The Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston was a Greek Cypriot nationalist guerrilla organization that fought a campaign for the end of British rule in Cyprus, and for eventual union with Greece.
Polykarpos Giorkatzis was a Greek Cypriot politician. He served as the first Minister of the Interior of the Republic of Cyprus. He also served as provisional minister of Labour in the period leading to Cyprus being proclaimed an independent state. Before entering the political stage he fought for EOKA. His political career evolved from a staunch supporter of Makarios to becoming one of the archbishop's principal political rivals. He was assassinated in 1970.
Georgios Grivas, also known by his nickname Digenis, was the Cypriot founder and leader of the Greek and Greek Cypriot paramilitary organisations Organization X (1942–1949), EOKA (1955–1959) and EOKA B (1971–1974).
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The Turkish Resistance Organisation was a Turkish Cypriot pro-taksim paramilitary resistance organisation formed by Rauf Denktaş and Turkish military officer Rıza Vuruşkan in 1958 as an organisation to counter the Greek Cypriot Fighter's Organization EOKA. The name of the organization was changed twice. In 1967 to "Mücahit", and became the Security Forces Command in 1976. Its members (soldiers) are called Mücahit (Mujahideen).
Capital punishment for murder was abolished in Cyprus on 15 December 1983. It was abolished for all crimes on 19 April 2002. The death penalty was replaced with life imprisonment. Cyprus is a signatory to the second optional protocol of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which provides for full abolition of capital punishment. Cyprus initially had a reservation on the second protocol, allowing execution for grave crimes in times of war, but subsequently withdrew this reservation. The Constitution of Cyprus was amended in 2016 to eliminate all forms of capital punishment.
Evagoras Pallikarides was a Greek-Cypriot poet and revolutionary who was a member of EOKA during the 1955–1959 campaign against British rule in Cyprus. He was arrested on 18 December 1956 when he was caught carrying weaponry on a donkey, to which he confessed in his trial. He was sentenced to death by hanging for firearms possession on 27 February 1957 and was the youngest insurgent to be executed in Cyprus. His death generated widespread controversy due to his young age and the circumstances of his arrest.
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Several distinct periods of Cypriot intercommunal violence involving the two main ethnic communities, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, marked mid-20th century Cyprus. These included the Cyprus Emergency of 1955–59 during British rule, the post-independence Cyprus crisis of 1963–64, and the Cyprus crisis of 1967. Hostilities culminated in the 1974 de facto division of the island along the Green Line following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The region has been relatively peaceful since then, but the Cyprus dispute has continued, with various attempts to solve it diplomatically having been generally unsuccessful.
Kyriakos Matsis was a Greek Cypriot guerrilla and member of EOKA.
Stylianos Lenas was a member of EOKA, and one of the Cypriots who were wounded in battle against British soldiers.
Michalis Karaolis was a Cypriot public official and revolutionary. Born in the village of Palaichori Oreinis of Pitsilia, Karaolis worked as a government clerk and a member of EOKA. He was the first to be sentenced to death and hanged alongside Andreas Dimitriou on 10 May 1956.
The Cyprus Emergency was a conflict fought in British Cyprus between April 1955 and March 1959.
The Cyprus Times, also known as The Times of Cyprus, was an English-language newspaper published in Larnaca, in Cyprus from 1880, following the island becoming a British protectorate in 1878. It was founded by Edward Henry Vizetelly, who also acted as its first editor. Vizetelly had been a war correspondent for the British newspaper The Daily News, and The New York Times.
The 1974 anti-American riots in Cyprus were violent anti-American rioting that took place in front of the United States embassy in Nicosia, Cyprus on August 19, 1974. The events took place days after the second phase of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus which resulted in Turkey controlling 36.5% of the island. The gunmen murdered the US ambassador in the American embassy in Cyprus.
The execution groups were a subdivision of the Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston (EOKA), the main anti-colonial organization in Cyprus. These groups, established in Cypriot cities by the organization's leader, Georgios Grivas, were central to his strategy of urban guerrilla warfare against the British, who occupied the island. During the Cypriot War of Independence, they participated in numerous assassinations and attacks targeting military personnel, police, spies, settlers, and traitors to the organization.
On 19 January 1956 he was shot from behind five times by two assassins. He died instantly and his assassins escaped before the police arrived.