NICOSIA, 21 February 2003 — The family of a Saudi millionaire who mysteriously vanished in Cyprus three years ago have offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to his whereabouts.

The brother of Rakan Khaled Hathleen, 52, who disappeared from his flat in the southern port city of Limassol in February, 2000, is in Cyprus to issue a desperate plea for anyone with credible information to step forward.

“My brother was not the type of person who would leave without informing his family where he was going and what he would be doing,” said the man’s brother, who only identified himself as Mansour.

He told AFP on Wednesday that the family still held out hope that Hathleen was alive, since there was no hard evidence to suggest otherwise. But the missing person’s case has baffled Cypriot police from day one and the case file remains open.

“We don’t know for certain if he left the island, or is still here... We are continuing to evaluate every lead we get, although there are no new developments,” police spokesman Christos Katsikides said.

The other scenarios include murder or that the Saudi simply does not want to be found. Some information early on in the investigation suggested that Hathleen had eloped with his 41-year-old Uzbek housemaid who was living with him at the time.

The woman left with her 19-year-old son when he was deported from the island as an illegal immigrant a few days after Hathleen was officially reported as missing on Feb. 18, 2000. It is known that $70,000 from the Saudi’s bank account went missing and his credit card was last used in Russia after his disappearance.

“We believe that the woman was my brother’s live-in housemaid at his Limassol flat, but the two were not involved in a relationship of that sort,” said Mansour.

He said his brother kept the apartment in the southern resort because he liked to shuttle back and forth to the island and spend his holidays here.

He revealed that the Saudi government — which has been keeping close tabs on the case from the beginning — had contacted the Russian offices of Interpol, which is trying to trace the whereabouts of the two Uzbeks.

Mansour denied earlier suggestions that the Russian Mafia may have had a hand in the Saudi’s disappearance.