Newsroom
Police in Limassol are investigating the death of a 31-year-old man as a premeditated murder after an autopsy suggested his injuries were not caused by a fall.
The victim, identified as Gerome Zarate De Castro from the Philippines, was found critically injured outside the apartment building where he lived in the early hours of Sunday morning. He was rushed to Limassol General Hospital but died a few hours later.
At first, it appeared De Castro had fallen from his balcony. But a post-mortem carried out on Monday by forensic doctors Angeliki Papetta and Orthodoxos Orthodoxou revealed otherwise. The doctors concluded that he died from hemorrhagic shock caused by internal bleeding after his spleen ruptured. They also discovered penetrating wounds in his abdomen that, according to police, could not be explained by a fall alone.
“The absence of injuries that would justify death from a fall reasonably raises suspicions they were caused by a sharp object or another mechanism before the fall,” police said in a statement.
Following the findings, officers arrested the victim’s 26-year-old partner on a court warrant to assist with the investigation.
Authorities say the case remains under active investigation as they await further lab test results.
