I know you will sentence me to death, but I did it as a Cypriot who wants liberty. So said Evagoras Pallekalides, 18, a member of the Cyprus terrorist organisation EOKA, when he was arrested by a Royal Artillery patrol on a moonlit night in 1956.
The British emergency laws made it a capital offence to be caught with an unlawful weapon and Pallekalides was driving two donkeys laden with food, a Bren gun and ammunition. He was hanged on Thursday, March 14th, 1957, at Nicosia Prison, the last of nine EOKA members executed in 1956 and 1957. Cyprus gained independence in 1960.