Suspects walk free in Ayia Napa highway murder

The four suspects in the Ayia Napa highway murder, remanded in custody last week in the slaying of Gary Boris Christodoulou, have been released from custody.

According to media sources, investigators failed to link the suspects to the crime even after obtaining phone records and their lawyers presenting alibis on all of them.

On November 15, the four Greek Cypriot suspects aged 27, 35, 36, and 44 were remanded for eight days during a hearing in a packed courtroom under heavy police protection. After a long and dramatic hearing and alibis presented before the Famagusta district court, the four suspects were remanded for eight days on suspicion of being the main culprits in the crime.

But on Friday, prosecutors did not seek to renew the remands for the suspects, with sources saying “no incriminating evidence was found linking the suspects” to the murder.

All four suspects were released Thursday before midnight. 

Christodoulou, aged 33, was killed execution-style on November 1 after his car came to a forced stop on the Ayia Napa highway. Prosecutors, who drew links between the case and another underworld hit in Ayia Napa back in 2016, said the victim was tricked by someone who had gained his trust.

The victim had been a trial witness in the Ayia Napa slaying in 2016, where businessman Phanos Kalopsidiotis was killed along with three others, including an off-duty police officer.

Prosecutors said an ongoing vendetta was behind the murder of Christodoulou, presenting evidence to the court that investigators obtained mobile phone evidence linking the suspects to the victim.

The defence attorneys had accused the prosecution team of parading suspects in the courtroom “just for the show” while they had objected to the remand of their clients from the very beginning.