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The Limassol Permanent Criminal Court unanimously convicted all four defendants Friday of the premeditated murder of Thanasis Kalogeropoulos, nearly three years after he was shot dead outside a beach restaurant in Agios Tychonas.
The four men, aged 43, 46, 24 and 23, face mandatory life imprisonment for premeditated murder. Sentencing was expected later in the day.
The three-judge panel also found them guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, among other charges, delivering its verdict in a packed courtroom under tight police security.
Relatives and friends of Kalogeropoulos attended as the court summarized a judgment running to more than 600 pages. The trial heard testimony from 75 witnesses and received 550 exhibits.
The reading was briefly interrupted when a lawyer became unwell before proceedings resumed.
Four men, different roles
The prosecution’s case set out different roles for each defendant in the planning and execution of the killing.
It identified the 43-year-old and the 23-year-old as the men who carried out the shooting. The 46-year-old was accused of helping prepare the crime, while the 24-year-old was accused of involvement in organizing the plan and transporting the perpetrators.
All four had denied the charges and exercised their right to remain silent during the trial. They have been held at the Central Prisons since the early stages of the case.
Following the convictions, defense lawyers were not expected to seek reduced sentences on the remaining charges.
Police maintained a strong presence both inside and outside the Limassol court complex throughout the proceedings.
A morning shooting and a burned getaway car
Kalogeropoulos was killed on the morning of Oct. 30, 2023, in the parking lot of a beach restaurant in Agios Tychonas.
Two attackers opened fire, fatally wounding him before fleeing in a vehicle. That vehicle was later found burned out, with the weapons used in the killing inside.
The shooting brought a fatal armed attack to a familiar part of Limassol’s coastal restaurant strip. The investigation that followed led to the arrest of the four men and their prosecution, a case that has now ended in unanimous guilty verdicts, with sentencing still to follow.
