United States Vice-Consul (Death)

HC Deb 20 June 1956 vol 554 cc101-2W

63. Sir D. Gammans

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies under what circumstances an official of the United States consular services was murdered by terrorists in Cyprus.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd

At half-past nine on the evening of 16th June a bomb was thrown through the open door of a small restaurant in the walled city of Nicosia. It exploded and killed the United States Vice-Consul in Cyprus, who had recently arrived in the island. Three other American employees of the State Department who were in the restaurant were injured, one of them seriously.

I know that the House will join me in expressing its sympathy with the family of Mr. Boteler and its abhorence of the cowardly and indiscriminate attack which caused his death.