Michael Koutsoftas

Born in Palaiometocho¹, Nicosia district, on November 12, 1934.

Hanged by the British in Nicosia Central Prison² on September 21, 1956.

Michael Koutsoftas graduated from Palaiometocho primary school and worked in a textile mill as a dyer. With the beginning of the struggle, he volunteered to serve in the ranks of EOKA. However, due to his leftist ideology, as well as the fact that he was an orphan and had a younger sister who was unmarried, there were reservations. Finally, his firm and unwavering persistence convinced the priest of Palaiometocho Papa Lefteris to swear him in.

His first action was to raise the Greek flag on top of the eucalyptus trees in the center of his village, which the English were taking down. One night, he cut down, with his friend Andreas Panagides, the branches of the eucalyptus trees, so that the soldiers could not take down the flag. They cut down the huge trees from the root.

The hanging of Michalakis Karaolis and Andreas Dimitriou upset Koutsoftas so much that he abandoned his work and for a few days he scouted the Nicosia airport³, where English soldiers were stationed, looking for a place and a way to strike back. To his mother's advice to be careful, he replied:

On May 16, six days after the execution of Karaolis and Dimitriou, after passing by Papa Lefteris and asking him to stand as his sister's protector, if she were to be arrested, he left with his friends Andreas Panagides and Paraskevas Choiropoulis, for the area of Nicosia airport, where they attacked and killed the English Major Patrick John Hale in his office. They were pursued and arrested by English troops. Michael Koutsoftas and Andreas Panagides were executed along with Stelios Mavrommatis on September 21, 1956. Paraskevas Choiropoulis, because he was a minor, was sentenced to life imprisonment.