Nikos Sampson - The Invulnerable Executioner of EOKA

Omorfita, 1963. Nikolaos Sampson crushes the Turkish gangs and loots their flag

A video consisting of interviews and footage of Nikos Sampson, before and after he took power of Cyprus on this day in 1974. The first interview footage is before he took power and is acting a spokesperson for EOKA B, a pro ENOSIS (Union with Greece) paramilitary organisation based in Cyprus. The second interview footage is an interview with Sampson after he was forced to resign from office once the Turks invaded. The final piece of footage is Sampson on his way to the first press conference shortly after the successful coup.

During the Cyprus Emergency, in which the EOKA guerrilla group waged a campaign of resistance against British colonial rule in Cyprus from 1955 to 1959, Sampson joined EOKA and adopted the nom de guerre Atrotos, or "Invulnerable". Sampson joined EOKA and formed part of an execution team under the direct orders of General Georgios Grivas ("Digenis"), leader of EOKA. Sampson participated in a number of assassinations carried out along Ledra Street in Nicosia, which was nicknamed "Murder Mile", and shot dead numerous British servicemen, police officers and enemy collaborators. He was involved with at least 15 killings. At the time, Sampson was working as a journalist, and he would often photograph the bodies of his victims after killing them, then send the photographs to The Cyprus Times newspaper to be published. The police became suspicious about how Sampson was always the first reporter to arrive at the murder scene and he was arrested. Only a month after his acquittal, he was given away by informants and arrested in the village of Dhali. He was convicted of weapons possession which, under the emergency regulations of the moment, carried a death sentence. The death sentence was subsequently commuted to life imprisonment and Sampson was flown to the United Kingdom to serve it. A year and a half later, under a general amnesty as part of the 1959 Zürich and London Agreement, he was released but he remained in exile in Greece until Cyprus gained formal independence in August 1960. He returned to Nicosia shortly after Independence Day.

Following an explosion to the statue of EOKA hero Markos Drakos in Nicosia, Sampson actively participated in clashes between the Greek and Turkish communities in December 1963. On the morning of 24 December, the clashes in Nicosia spread and fighting continued into the subsequent year. Sampson led armed groups in fierce battles between Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot irregulars. Following the fight in Omorphita, Nikos Sampson was nicknamed by the Turkish Cypriots as the "Butcher of Omorphita".To the Greek-Cypriots he was hailed as the "conqueror of Omorphita".

In 1971, EOKA head George Grivas returned to Cyprus and gave the campaign for enosis further momentum, forming EOKA B whose goal was enosis. Following the death of Grivas in January 1974, the Greek military junta of 1967-1974 gave active support to EOKA-B. Nikos Sampson maintained a strongly nationalist, pro-Greek position throughout these years. On 15 July 1974, Makarios was deposed by a military coup which was led by Greek officers of the Cyprus National Guard. The Greek military junta installed Sampson as President, as a result of a decision of Colonel Constantinos Kombokis, Deputy leader of the coup, when the President of the Supreme Court could not be found and an ex Makarios minister Zenon Severis refused to take over as President. Sampson's appointment was an on-the-spot decision to avoid a power vacuum. In response to the coup, Turkey invaded Cyprus under the obsurd excuse to "Protect Cyprus' Turkish minority", despite the new government having not attacked or persecuted any Turkish citizens, even though they had illegaly formed several hostile enclaves on the island. Following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, Sampson was forced to resign due to the pressure he faced.

Nikos Sampson: 16 December 1935 – 9 May 2001