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Cyprus Organization of the Greek Cypriot Police
The chief of the Cyprus Police Force was responsible to
the
minister of the interior. He was aided by a deputy chief
and, below
him, two assistant chiefs who supervised activities at
police
headquarters. Headquarters consisted of four departments:
administration; traffic; criminal investigation; and
planning,
training, and public relations. Beneath headquarters in
the chain
of command stood seven division chiefs, each of whom
supervised a
police district; beneath them were station chiefs.
Directly under
the national headquarters were five special units: the
Police
Training School, the Aliens and Immigration Service, the
Fire
Service, the Cyprus Information Service, and the Mobile
Immediate
Action Units. The latter two services, although
administratively
responsible to the chief of police, were operationally
controlled
elsewhere. The Cyprus Information Service, a small
intelligence
unit concerned with both security matters and common
crime,
received its directions from the president of the
republic. The
Mobile Immediate Action Units, a reincarnation of the
Tactical
Police Reserve of the early 1970s, were elite forces to
protect
high-ranking officials and foreign embassies and to
provide special
weapons assault teams in the event of terrorist attacks.
The units'
training and operational control were in the hands of the
National
Guard, and their commander was an officer of the National
Guard
Personnel needs of the police were met through
recruitment of
career officers from the Greek Cypriot population. Unlike
the
National Guard, the police force contained no mainland
Greeks. New
recruits attended a twenty-one-week course at the Police
Training
School in Athalassa, southeast of Nicosia. A few
high-ranking
officers received training in Britain, Greece, and other
countries.
The police force was armed beyond the requirements of
ordinary
police work; its arsenal included armored cars and light
artillery
acquired in the 1960s, when the police played a central
role in the
intercommunal struggle. In 1989 orders were placed for the
purchase
of a helicopter with sophisticated surveillance equipment
and two
coastal patrol boats, as part of stepped-up antinarcotics
operations.
Data as of January 1991
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