Victim is forgotten as lawyers slug it out

Robert Fisk reports from Cyprus on the tour guide manslaughter trial

Louise Jensen did not get much of a mention in Larnaca Assize Court yesterday. The three British soldiers accused of killing the Danish tour guide last September - Privates Alan Ford, Jeff Parnell and Justin Fowler - sat impassively for almost five hours as their lawyers battered away at one of the policemen who had arrested them less than two hours after Miss Jensen was bludgeoned to death with a shovel.

Had PC117, Andreas Eleftheriou, heard his armed colleague read to the three men a formal arrest statement after leading them to the police station with their hands above their heads? Had the three soldiers been legally cautioned? Was PC Eleftheriou close enough to his comrade to hear such a caution? Would PC Eleftheriou like to demonstrate on a map how close he was to his colleague at the time?

Only once did Louise Jensen's ghost drift into court, and then not by name. It came when PC Eleftheriou was being questioned about the soldiers' behaviour. One of them, he said, had replied to his comrade's question about the missing woman with the words: "What girl? We know nothing about a girl." But that was all; for the defence counsel were back at work on the constable again, suggesting that he had not told the truth, that as a policeman on the British sovereign base at Dhekelia, he should not have played any role in helping the Cypriot police to arrest soldiers on Cypriot territory, even though he had been called to help his Cypriot colleague who was allegedly confronted by three drunken men covered in blood.

From time to time, the three accused soldiers would lean over to consult with their lawyers about the moment of their arrest. Their defence counsel are being paid from British legal aid, and at least one - often two - British army officers now sit in court throughout the hearing, privately consulting with the three during adjournments, "giving them any help they may need in how to communicate with their lawyers", as one of them put it vaguely. On Tuesday evening, a lady from the WRVS arrived in court to give the three accused Britons pounds 15 each in Cypriot currency.

Miss Jensen's family, however, are not represented. An honorary Danish consul made an appearance in the early days of the trial but has not been seen since. Yesterday, while seven British news organisations were present in court, only a single reporter from Copenhagen was here to write for the Danish press.

Miss Jensen's parents and younger brother, who are not well off, have said that they will attend the court's verdict - in perhaps two months' time - but that they would find a long stay in Cyprus, the island on which their 23-year-old daughter was stripped, bound and beaten to death last year, too painful to endure.

All three soldiers have pleaded not guilty to her manslaughter - the charge chosen by the prosecution in a republic which does not recognise unpremeditated murder.

To the court interpreter's evident exhaustion, their counsel yesterday continued to cross-question the policeman into the afternoon, trying to prove that he had no right to have been present at the scene of the men's arrest. When the chief prosecutor pleaded for a halt to such tactics, there was mild laughter in court before Andonis Andreou, the principal defence lawyer, turned to him and muttered of the witness with a grin: "I'll just torture him a little longer." This, needless to say, was not translated into English.