WTF! GRAVE ROBBERS STEAL THE BODY OF FORMER CYPRUS PRESIDENT TASSOS PAPADOPOULOS!

NICOSIA, Cyprus — Graverobbers stole the corpse of former hard-line Cyprus President Tassos Papadopoulos, digging up his coffin during a thunderstorm just before the first anniversary of his death, police said Friday.
The body snatching horrified people in a country where such acts are rare. It came as the island's Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders are locked in complex reunification talks that have made limited progress.

Police said the tomb raiders struck late Thursday or early Friday. There was no immediate indication of a motive, and police would not confirm a state television report that three people were being questioned in connection with the robbery.

President Demetris Christofias, who beat Papadopoulos in March 2008 elections, urged Cypriots "to remain calm in the face of this provocative act."

"This is an unacceptable, unholy, unethical and condemnable act that damages our tradition, our culture and our respect toward the dead," Christofias said.

Papadopoulos is seen by some nationalist Greek Cypriots as a symbol of resistance against peace deals they believe have been weighted against them.

"What happened is macabre and utterly condemnable. I am honestly still trying to comprehend what kind of warped minds could even think of doing such a thing, let alone actually carry it out," said Andros Kyprianou, the head of Cyprus' ruling AKEL party. He urged that those responsible be "caught and made an example of."

Mounds of fresh earth were piled by the fenced-off grave site Friday at the Deftera Village Cemetery as about 80 police officials and two pathologists combed the area and nearby fields for clues.

The robbers had removed a heavy marble plaque from atop the grave, police said, digging down to the coffin and taking the body of Papadopoulos, who died of lung cancer on Dec. 12, 2008, at 74.

A light-gray substance was sprayed across the tombstone, located in a southwestern suburb of the capital, Nicosia. The substance obscurs Papadopoulos' name and date of birth but leaves the tombstone otherwise unharmed. Local media said the substance appeared to be asbestos, possibly used to erase the robbers' shoe prints.

The violated grave was discovered by one of Papadopoulos' former security guards when he went to make arrangements Friday morning for a ceremony marking the anniversary of the former president's death, police said.

Papadopoulos served as president from 2003 to 2008, ushering the ethnically divided island into the European Union in 2004. He was a central figure of Cypriot politics for decades, with a career spanning most of the island's turbulent history since it gained independence from Britain in 1960.