THREE Cypriot police officers are facing prosecution for the alleged beating, verbal abuse and mockery of a Zimbabwean teenager last year.

The Zimbabwean youth, who has lived in Cyprus with his mother and three sisters for eight years, said he was repeatedly beaten and ridiculed by the officers until he eventually started bleeding.

The incident occurred in March last year at a Nicosia district police office when 19-year-old Henry Taylor was questioned about a missing bike but it took more than six months for the country’s police to start investigations after a complaint was made.

According to Taylor’s testimony the officers repeatedly punched him on the head and back and shoved him around the room. Taylor says he tried to protect his head by putting his handcuffed wrists over it but, with every blow he received, the metal handcuffs dug into his head, eventually causing him to bleed.

Henry said the officers also seized his phone and went through all his text messages and photographs.

“They were reading them out loud and laughing at me. Then they made me read one and it was a bit of a rude message and one of the officers got really angry and beat me round the head again,” he said at the time.

Meanwhile, Taylor’s mother Elizabeth said she had urged her son not to seek prosecution of the officers for fear of reprisals.

“I was afraid of the consequences for Henry and my family. It’s also such a long process and maybe I’d lose my job because of that,” she said.

“I saw my son with a hole in his head and it made me so scared. I talked to a lawyer and also someone from the Police Complaints Commission. I was asked a lot of questions and nothing was done about it.

“The people I spoke to told me to forget it and that I’d get nothing out of this. They said I was just going to make problems for myself and I’ve got enough already and don’t want any more,” the distraught mother said.

She added that her son simply wanted to see justice being done for what had happened adding he was trying hard to make it in Cyprus but that it was difficult because of his skin colour.

“He applied for a job recently and the employer turned him down after saying ‘look at him’. He speaks such good Greek but people don’t want to give him a job,” she said.