Kyriakos Nikolaou

He was born in the village of Kyperounta¹ in 1937.

He was executed on September 7, 1956, after a tragic mistake, by his fellow fighters in 1956 in the area of his village.

When the liberation struggle began, in 1955, Kyriakos Nikolaou was still a student and was studying at the High School of Evrychou. He joined the ranks of EOKA from the beginning of the struggle and developed remarkable activity in his village and the surrounding area. His father, Nikolis Charalambous, was a farm guard, with ease of movement, and was an EOKA official in the Kyperounta area, helping the guerrilla groups and the EOKA leader Georgios Grivas - Digenis himself in various ways when he lived in the area. His mother, Anastasia, also helped in the struggle and, among other things, supplied the guerrillas with bread and rusks that she kneaded and baked.

Kyriakos Nikolaou was appointed youth leader (ANE) in Kyperounta and had contacts with Digenis himself, with Grigoris Afxentiou (when he served in the area as a sector commander) and with many other fighters and guerrillas. He worked hard as a liaison, as a messenger and in any other job assigned to him.

He took part in operations as an observer/signaler. In a battle between EOKA guerrillas and British soldiers who had fallen into an ambush, he managed to take as loot the weapon of an English soldier who later climbed the mountain and personally delivered it to Digenis. The latter told him that he could keep it, since he had won it, and indeed Hadjicharalambous kept it. This weapon, however, was the cause of his tragic demise. He had hidden it in a crypt that he had built on his father's estate (where his father also hid weapons and other material of the Organization). When this weapon (a sten gun type) once disappeared from its crypt, Hadjicharalambous was accused by Stylianos Lenas, who was then the leader of a guerrilla group in the Pitsilia region, of having delivered the weapon to the enemy, and he was also accused of having betrayed the British to the EOKA hideouts.

Indeed, Kyriakos Nikolaou had been identified by the British for his activity and had been arrested. He was only forced to point out the empty cache of his own lost weapon, but not the adjacent caches where there was ammunition. The British then let him go free, and this act of theirs raised suspicions about him. Eventually, Stylianos Lenas considered him a traitor and ordered his execution.

When he was called to follow the rebels to the mountain, Nikalaou did so with great eagerness because he wished to become a rebel himself. However, he was called to the mountain to be executed, as, and indeed was executed.

After the end of the fight, an investigation was conducted, following the orders of Georgios Grivas - Digenis, during which Lenas' tragic mistake was established (which mistake, according to testimony, Lenas himself had already recognized earlier, before he was killed). Moreover, the weapon, which was supposed to have been handed over by Nikolaou to the British, was later found hidden in Kyperounta. A fellow fighter of Nikolaou had taken it secretly, probably to incriminate him, due to jealousy. Furthermore, the real traitor who had indicated to the British the locations of EOKA hideouts was later revealed. There is also a suspicion that the British deliberately arrested Nikolaou and then released him shortly afterwards, in order to create suspicion and division among the EOKA members in the Kyperounta area.

Georgios Grivas - Digenis, however, later acknowledged, after the end of the fight, the mistake that had been made and restored the name of Kyriakos Nikolaou, expressing appreciation for the services that both he and his family had provided. Finally, his bones were exhumed and officially buried, with hero's honors.

Source: https://www.polignosi.com