Police investigating the murder of a Kent man in Cyprus have asked for the two main suspects to be handed over to them after they were arrested by a different force.

Mehmet Akpinar, 22, and Salih Ahmet, 43, were captured in Kyrenia - a city on the north coast of the country - last Friday evening, almost a week after 22-year-old estate agent George Low was killed in a stabbing attack in Ayia Napa.

The pair are being held for allegedly trespassing in a Turkish military zone and are expected to face charges that could place them behind bars in the north, with the warrant for their arrest regarding George's murder still outstanding.

Officers investigating the case in the south issued the warrant last Tuesday, but their northern counterparts are reportedly "not cooperating with the case"

Northern Cyprus has been inhabited by Turkish Cypriots since Turkey invaded the country in 1974, dividing the island in two. The northern third of the island is inhabited by Turkish Cypriots and the southern two-thirds by Greek Cypriots.

Today, Greek Cypriot police made a desperate plea for Akpinar and Ahmet to be handed over to them, but the Cyprus Mail reports that local deputy police chief George Economou has indicated that the north has not handed any criminal over to the south for years.

According to Turkish Cypriot newspaper Yeniduzen, high-ranking Turkish Cypriot crime officials have defined the pair as a Turkish Kurd and a Bulgarian Muslim, but it is not known who is who.

Last Wednesday it emerged that a third Turkish Cypriot man, from Nicosia, was being sought for helping them escape Ayia Napa, and Apinar's girlfriend was in court last week on suspicion of also aiding their getaway.

Koulla Anastasiou, a 49-year-old Greek Cypriot woman from Larnaca, told officers her boyfriend had confided to her that he and Ahmet had stabbed George and his friend Ben Barker, 22, following an altercation.

She said the argument was triggered when the men rebuked the Britons for urinating in public and admitted travelling to the holiday resort on the night of the killing to deliver a change of clothes to her boyfriend and then returned to pick up a phone he had hidden.

Ben, 22, was stabbed in the back multiple times. He survived the attack and has been recovering at Larnaca General Hospital.

Eyewitnesses insisted to KentOnline that the attack was "completely random", as tributes to estate agent George - who worked at Acorn Estate Agents in Bromley - poured in.

Speaking outside the family home in Ladywood Road last Monday morning, his father Martyn said "he could not wish for a better son".

The tragedy has devastated the rest of George's family - mum Helen, 47, brothers Wesley and Oliver, 23 and 11, and sisters Laura and Millie, 29 and 17. They flew out to Cyprus last Tuesday in a bid to have George repatriated and are still in the country.

Speaking after the arrests, Helen said: “We just want justice for George and Ben, who has been left traumatised by all this. We want justice for them both and will now have to wait.”

More than £15,000 has also been raised in his memory since the attack, which took place on what was set to be the pair's last night of a week-long holiday on the Mediterranean island.

The Costa Coffee shop in Bluewater's West Village where Millie works is also taking donations.