New witnesses in Strovolos double murder trial

Three more witnesses testified Monday in the Strovolos double murder trial, including the neighbour who answered the door to a frantic teenage boy late at night.

The criminal trial resumed Monday morning at the Nicosia courthouse with prosecution calling two paramedics who went to the crime scene and saw 60-year-old Yiorgos Hadjigeorgiou and his 59-year-old wife Dina Sergiou savagely stabbed to death in their own house in April 2018.

According to local media, the court heard that the first caller who dialed the emergency number spoke of wounded victims, with the first medic who read her testimony out loud saying she saw the two victims in the prone position but with no vital signs.

But according to a second medic, who also read his statement out loud, only the man’s body was facing down while the woman was lying on her back, with both victims in a pool of blood.

The second witness said they received a call at 1:52am and arrived at the residence at 2am, where he saw police officers and two other women outside the home but he was not clear of their purpose there.

The first witness explained during cross-examination that a police officer at the scene had told paramedics he had heard Sergiou gasping for air. But they could not hear anything, telling the defence attorney that a police officer had turned the woman’s body over to examine more closely.

The defence attorney of main defendant Loizos Tzionis, who is accused of murdering the couple, went on to ask a series of detailed questions.

“Why do you keep looking at the prosecutor whenever I ask you something?” the lawyer said.

“What are you trying to insinuate?” replied the prosecutor.

The defence attorney also asked both medics if they recall seeing a dog at the scene, with both witnesses saying no.

Neighbour takes the stand

Another witness, a neighbour of the murdered couple, also gave her testimony by reading a statement out loud. She said she had gone to bed around midnight and the teenage son of the couple knocked on her door around 1:35am.

“I asked to see who it was and I heard the 15-year-old call out ‘Mrs Athena’,” said the witness.

She then opened the door and saw the boy wearing nothing but a pair of wet underpants.

“Mrs Athena, thieves,” the boy said according to the witness, with the woman letting him inside. She also said the boy told her that the thieves were holding knives and that his “parents must have died… there was too much blood.”

The neighbour gave the boy her own slippers and a change of clothes that belonged to her son. At 1:41, she said the boy asked her to call his aunt. The court heard that the witness called a woman one minute later right across from her house, asking for her husband who was a police officer to come as well. The husband did not show up, according to the witness, noting that police arrived on the scene shortly thereafter.

“I know him, I known him, he told me but couldn’t quite place him because he was upset,” the witness recounted what the teen had told her that night, including that one suspect had his face covered.

She also said the boy had dark stains on the hands and belly but no blood stains, while he also uttered “they came for a laptop and a TV, this is no reason to harm my parents.”

When the prosecutor asked whether the woman had inquired as to why the boy was wearing only a boxer, the witness said one of the robbers had grabbed the boy as he was going down the stairs, causing the teen to lose his pajama top.

“I took off the pajama bottom in the basement because it was hot,” the boy said according to the witness.

The witness also said that the male victim in the past had told her in person that they had fallen victims of robbery twice before, with jewelry belonging to his wife stolen at one time while they had been robbed a second time.

The woman also said the murdered victims were good people, quiet neighbours who never provoked anyone.