Nur Nadir had protested husband’s innocence and vowed to stand by him
Nur Nadir
THE WIFE of Asil Nadir, the Turkish Cypriot tycoon jailed for siphoning £30 million from his Polly Peck empire, has filed for a divorce.
Nur Nadir, 29, had pledged to help her husband clear his name after he was sentenced to ten years in prison last year.
But she is reported to now be demanding £5million divorce, including Nadir’s four-wheel-drive vehicle and villa in North Cyprus.
The Turkish Cypriot press reported tweets from Mrs Nadir as saying: “When I first returned to Cyprus, I had dinner with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law.
“Bilge Nevzat asked me: ‘I guess you will divorce my brother now. You won’t ruin your life with him now will you?’ And I said of course I won’t divorce him and that I will do anything I can for him to get over this and then I left.
“I wanted to remove myself from all of what was happening … I wanted to rid myself of all these events and I begged to my husband to let me go, I told him that I didn’t have the strength any more. He said: ‘If you leave me I will reject everything and leave my fight for life.’
“I couldn’t handle his sad voice, nor could I handle this responsibility.”
Mrs Nadir’s lawyer has reportedly said the divorce will go through if she lowers her demands and accepts £2.5million.
FAILED RELEASE ATTEMPT
Last week The Times reported Nadir had failed in his second bid to be transferred to prison in Turkey for the remainder of his ten-year sentence.
Justice Secretary Chris Grayling refused the request because he considered Nadir’s £150,000 payment towards his legal aid bid of more than £1 million to be too small, the paper said.
It added that a transfer to Turkey could also mean Nadir is released earlier than he would in the UK, embarrassing the Conservative party to which he donated £400,000 in the 1980s.
GUILTY LAST YEAR
Asil Nadir is Turkish Cyprus’s most notorious convicted fraudster and is serving his sentence in Belmarsh prison, south London, where he spent many months in ill health in the hospital wing.
Turkey and Britain had been discussing the possibility of transferring Asil Nadir under the Council of Europe Convention for several months. It was reported in February that he had paid £5 million in compensation to defrauded investors in an attempt to remove “a major obstacle” to his hopes of transfer to Turkey.
Analysts speculated his transfer could mean he is subsequently moved to his native North Cyprus, which has diplomatic relations with Turkey. The sentence there could then be converted to house arrest.
