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Adrian's statement is not entirely correct. The photograph, in fact, was taken by award-winning British photo-journalist Robert Egby. The picture ran on the front page of every Fleet Street newspaper, except The Times of London. Egby received an Honourable Mention in The British Press Pictures of the Year 1956. The photograph shows Drosoulla Demetriadou sitting beside the body of her fiancé, Bonici Mompalda. He had been gunned down by an EOKA gunman. Nicos Sampson, aged 28 at the time, was found guilty of the murder. After the independence of Cyprus, he confessed to the execution in his own newspaper. |
Charles Allen in his book "The Savage Wars of Peace" attributes Egby's award-winning photograph to Sampson. Allen writes: "The infamous terrorist Nicos Sampson was a photographer whose shot of a girl kneeling by the side of her dead fiancé went round the world as one of the most brilliant Press pictures of all time."
"Nice line," says Egby from his New Jersey home, "but credit given to the wrong person."
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