The names of nine Cypriots, working as agents of the secret service of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (CSSR) in Cyprus, at the height of the Cold War, in the seventies and eighties were revealed in a report in the Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies.
The agents, also referred to as ‘collaborators’, included a former education minister, a long-serving secretary of two presidents, an Akel deputy and a high ranking police officer among others.
The report in the peer-reviewed journal, by Jan Koura, is based on classified documents of the former Czechoslovak Ministry of Interior which are accessible at the Archives of Security Services in Prague (ABS). The Czech Republic decided to declassify highly-classified documents as part of its effort to unveil the history of communist Czechoslovakia.
Czechoslovak intelligence targeted three groups for recruiting agents – members and supporters of Akel, people who had studied at universities in Czechoslovakia and Cypriot public employees. Archives also list the amounts of money paid to some of them, although they were not all paid.
The highest profile individuals who worked for the Czechoslovak secret service were Harris Vovides, secretary of presidents Makarios and Spyros Kyprianou, Chrysostomos Sophianos, and education minister from 1976 to 1980 and subsequently a party leader, Akel deputy Dinos Constantinos, and journalist Stavros Angelides. Their code names were also given.
Vovides collaborated under the codename DOPAL, but according to Koura “the file concerning his collaboration remains classified and has yet to be released to the archive.” Only fragments of other material survived to give an idea of the extent of his collaboration.
“According to these fragments he was enlisted to cooperate as a ‘confidential contacts’ shortly after the Yom Kippur War. During this conflict, he relayed information regarding activities by Nato countries in Cyprus, and he even participated in one of the active measures undertaken by Czechoslovak intelligence against Israel. He also furnished intelligence with materials originating from government and presidential office meetings.”
Interestingly the report pointed out that Vovides, who had close relations with Makarios “apparently communicated with the intelligence service with Makarios’ approval.” Cyprus had bought arms from Czechoslovakia in 1966 and 1972 and passing on information may have been a way of maintaining good relations with its supplier.
The intelligence gathering gained momentum in 1976 when Czechoslovakia set up an embassy in Nicosia, although the groundwork had been done previously by the Charge d’ Affaires Josef Gregr. The first ambassador Miroslav Chytry, codenamed CHLADEK, leveraged pre-established contacts.
By 1981, the agency network was at its peak, with “nine agents actively collaborating,” and was considered one of the most successful, given the size of the Cyprus population. Its job was made easier, wrote Koura, by the absence of any counterintelligence and the friendly disposition to Eastern Bloc countries, stemming from Cyprus’ membership of the Non-Aligned Movement.
The first collaborator linked to Akel was MP Dinos Constantinos, who had studied economics at the University of Economics in Prague and developed relations with Gregr. Ambassador Chytry developed friendly links with Constantinos, whose Czech-born Greek wife worked as a secretary at the Czechoslovakia embassy and upgraded him to ‘confidential contact’ in 1977, codenamed CANDA.
“Intelligence record highlight the value of details from discussion at the President’s office and discreet parliamentary meetings that Constantinos had attended,” said the report. “However, collaboration concluded in 1981 shortly after his supervision was given to (new ambassador) Jan Kilmes,” with whom he did not get on and “refrained from sharing information with.”
There were another two Akel linked agents – Angelides and Christoforos Ioannides, who was deputy head of the international department of the party’s central committee. Ioannides, who had also studied in Czechoslovakia, was enlisted as a ‘confidential contact’ in 1981, under the codenamed FAHRI, and according to the records, “he cooperated with the intelligence service knowingly and willingly,” until November 1989.
Angelides, who had worked as a journalist for Akel newspaper Haravghi and subsequently for Phileleftheros, was also the correspondent of the Czechoslovak Press Agency (CTK) in the sixties. He was enlisted in 1978 in the ‘confidential contact’ category, under the code name AKRIS, making “contributions primarily in areas of information intelligence and the execution of active measures continuing this role until 1989.”
Early 1989 was the time that Prague decided to phase down cooperation with agents, because at the end of the previous year an intelligence officer, Vlastimil Ludvik, who had overseen the Nicosia operation from Prague HQ, defected. Ludvik “possessed sensitive information including the identities of its covert collaborators,” and there was a risk of their identities being compromised.
Sophianos was officially recruited in 1982, under the code name SUKRAN in the agent category, two years after he had left his post as education minister in the Spryos Kyprianou government. In those two years he had set up his political party Pame and newspaper – Kyprianou. He also developed friendly relations with Ambassador Chytry, who gave him Czechoslovak-made service pistol at his request.
Before his recruitment, Sophianos “started featuring certain active measures by Czechoslovak intelligence in his weekly newspaper Kypriaki, for which his received financial compensation. These funds served as a primary source of income for his newspaper.” His role as agent, “predominantly encompassed executing active measures and providing insights into Cyprus politics,” but the cooperation ended in 1983 after the dissolution of his party and closing of the newspaper.
Arguably the most valuable agent was deputy police chief Pavlos Stokkos, who had trained with the FBI in the US as well as in the UK. He had been provided, at his request, with Czechoslovak pistols and ammunition, by Chytry. When Stokkos was suspended in 1978, the embassy not only maintained communication with him, but also supported him financially. In that year he became an agent under the code name BELIS.
The report said: “Stokkos’ intelligence potential was significant” as he “maintained connections with individuals within the Cypriot secret service, had an informant in the Cypriot police in the Dhekelia British base and possessed access to police records and vehicle registration. Additionally, he was in contact with individuals responsible for the security of embassies belonging to countries of priority interest to Czechoslovakia intelligence such as the United States, Britain and Israel.
The intelligence service was so impressed with Stokkos’ work that in September 1981 secretly took him to Prague where the chief of the intelligence service, Karel Sochor, awarded him the ‘Medal of the National Security Corps.’ The cooperation was abruptly terminated the following year when there were reports of Stokkos’ collaboration with Mossad.
The rest of the collaborators were men who had studied in Czechoslovakia. Constantinos Karatsiolis, code name KARATS, was a mature student, having previously worked at Haravghi, informed the intelligence service about Cypriot students in Czechoslovakia and exposed the identity of an individual acting as an informant of the Cyprus foreign ministry. He was officially enlisted in 1978, when he was working as a journalist at the CBC (now CyBC).
“Three years later, the Nicosia residency had already come to regard him as one of the most valuable links within the agency’s network.”
Dr Euripides Georgiades, code name FIDAS, was enlisted while still in Prague and on returning to Cyprus he earned the designation ‘agent verbovcik’ which is “a distinctive category of collaborator tasked with recruiting individuals willing to cooperate with Czechoslovak intelligence.”
Another student enlisted was Pavlos Flourentzos, who was enlisted under the code name ARCH. Before leaving Czechoslovakia he received training in “surveillance techniques, telephone interception and correspondence scrutiny. His collaboration was terminated in 1985, “due to low quality of information being relayed.”
Some of the agents did the work because of their ideological affinity with Czechoslovakia, receiving the odd gift. Stokkos, according to intelligence records was paid CY£4,953 and US$3,500; Georgiades received CY£3,050 and US$600. Others received smaller compensation, said the report.
Explaining the interest of Czechoslovakia in Cyprus, the reports said: “Socialist states long-supported the independence of the Republic of Cyprus, opposed its membership in Nato, sought to remove British Bases, and used Greece-Turkey dispute over Cyprus to weaken Western unity. In pursuing this strategy they also used their secret services.”
