A British woman told a Turk-ish Cypriot court yesterday that a man suspected of manslaughter in an arson attack in Britain had burns on his face the night of the fire and explosion.
Victoria Armstrong was testifying in the trial of Kemal Kemalzade (39), who was detained in northern Cyprus last year and is on trial there over a 2000 explosion at a shop owned by his brother and sister-in-law in Stoke-on-Trent.
The blast killed their tenant, Colin Salt, who lived above the shop.
Kemalzade is on trial in northern Cyprus because the self-declared state has no extradition agreement with Britain and does not want to be seen as a refuge for fugitives.
Kemalzade's brother and sister-in-law, Cinar and Sibel Kemalzade, were jailed in 2004 in Britain for manslaughter and plotting to blow up their shop to claim insurance money. Kemalzade fled to northern Cyprus in 2001.
Ms Armstrong said she had seen Kemalzade at a bus stop and that he had recent burns on his face.
The trial continues.
