Some honesty about the past month and a half, and why I’m choosing to speak up.
Pictured: a clipping from the newspaper piece that covered my situation. Photo/article credit: Lietuvos rytas.
For the past month and a half, my life has looked nothing like the one I built in Northern Cyprus. Instead of showing clients around properties and answering questions about the market, I’ve been sitting in a rented apartment in France, checking in with the police twice a week, and waiting for a court to decide whether I get to go home.
I’ve decided that staying quiet about it isn’t serving me anymore. So here’s what’s actually going on, in my own words.
How This Started
I landed in Nice with my teenage son for what should have been a trip to enjoy the Cannes Film Festival. Instead, I was pulled aside at passport control, separated from him, and slowly realized the request behind my detention was coming from the Republic of Cyprus, tied to my work as a real-estate consultant in the north.
I’m fully licensed, fully tax-compliant, and I don’t sell property myself — I help people, whoever and wherever they are, understand their options before they buy. Sometimes that means pointing someone toward the south, sometimes the north, sometimes somewhere else entirely. I am independent international consultant looking for interests of my clients.
The Problem Nobody Talks About
There’s still no shared property registry between the two sides of Cyprus. After eighteen years in this business, I still don’t have a reliable way to verify who truly owns a given plot of land — and neither does anyone else working in this market. That’s not something one consultant caused, and it’s not something one consultant can fix alone.
Where Things Stand Now
A French court has ruled that I should be extradited to the Republic of Cyprus. My legal team has appealed that decision, and we’re told a ruling should come within a few weeks. My lawyers have pointed out that the same court, only six months earlier, rejected an almost identical extradition request involving another contractor who’d worked in the north — which gives me real hope that this can still be overturned.
Until then, I stay in France with my sons, I keep every appointment the authorities ask of me, and I keep believing — that a fair, impartial court will look at the actual facts rather than the politics.
Why This Matters Beyond Me
I’m not the only consultant or agent facing this kind of pressure. I want a real trial, a real look at the evidence, not a forced resolution because it’s easier for everyone else.
More than anything, I hope this pushes toward something practical — a real system, shared between both sides of the island, that lets a buyer from anywhere check, clearly and simply, whether a piece of land is actually free to purchase. That tool doesn’t exist today. It should.
To what extent can the consequences of 52 years unresolved international dispute between Republic of Cyprus and TRNC (Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus) be imposed—via criminal law—upon civilians who are not parties to that dispute?
What Comes Next
People keep asking whether, once this is resolved, I’ll stay in Northern Cyprus or leave for good. The answer is simple: I’m not going anywhere. My sons go to school there, our life is there, our community is there. Whatever the courts decide about this case, that part of my life isn’t up for negotiation.
I’m grateful to everyone — friends, clients, people I’ve never even met — who’ve reached out with support. It genuinely helps to know I’m not facing this alone.
I’ll keep posting updates here as things move forward. Thank you for reading, and for believing me.
— Rasa
This post shares my own perspective and is based on facts from an article about my case published in Lietuvos rytas. You can read the original Lithuanian article here: original article (PDF).