Newsroom
A 20-year-old man told police he heard a heated argument in the kitchen and walked in and saw his mother’s partner threatening her with a knife. He said he stepped in and stabbed the man in the ribs, an investigator told Paphos District Court on Tuesday.
The account offered a possible explanation for how the 51-year-old British man came to be found bleeding in the passenger seat of a car in Peyia on Monday evening. He was taken to Paphos General Hospital, where, according to the timeline presented in court, he was pronounced dead at 8:42 p.m.
The court ordered the young man and his 42-year-old mother held for eight days while police investigate suspected murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Both appeared without lawyers and did not oppose the police request to hold them.
Investigator Plastiras Simillidis told the court that, according to the son’s account, the argument began because the older man believed his partner was seeing someone else. The son said he stabbed him in the ribs and pulled the knife out. The man then bled heavily, according to testimony presented at the hearing.
The mother told investigators her partner had been violent toward her and cited an incident she said took place two days before the stabbing. She also alleged that he used cocaine and became aggressive and intensely jealous after taking it. Police are examining her claims.
The court also heard how the injured man ended up in the car. According to the investigator’s account, the 20-year-old asked his own partner to take the man to hospital. She put him in the car, then returned to the house. Police later found bloodstains inside and told the court they believe the mother tried to clean them.
Police said they first received a report Monday evening of a seriously injured man inside a car. Investigators are still working to establish what happened in the kitchen and in the time between the stabbing and that call.
