The Limassol District Court on Monday ordered three women, aged 24, 35 and 24, remanded in custody for eight days in connection with the killing of a 30-year-old compatriot in a flat in the Potamos Germasogeias area. Police are investigating offences of conspiracy to commit a felony and premeditated murder. It was also noted in court that the 35-year-old is residing illegally in the Republic of Cyprus. According to their own statements, the suspects said they were engaged in prostitution.
According to submissions in court, all four women had been living together in the Germasogeia apartment in recent days. On the night before the incident, the three suspects went out to a bar and returned in the early hours, while the 30-year-old remained at home. The suspects said the victim was in an agitated state and behaving erratically when they returned, and that they tried to calm her, believing she had used narcotics. A couple described as compatriots also returned with them to the apartment. Their identities are unknown at this stage and efforts are under way to identify and locate them.
Alleged sequence of events
Testimony given to investigators indicates that one of the 24-year-olds tried to restrain the victim with her hands, using force, while the 35-year-old was cleaning the flat at the time. The same statements place the 35-year-old as repeatedly striking the victim with a broom handle, which police later found broken inside the apartment and seized as evidence.
Drug use and conflicting claims
The first suspect, aged 24, told police that she and the victim had previously stayed together in another apartment where they used drugs. Regarding the incident itself, the suspects claimed they tried without success to calm the victim, who allegedly bit one of them on the chest and the other on the leg during the altercation. The suspects have offered differing accounts of what occurred between them and the victim during the early-morning fight.
Witness information presented to the court suggests the first suspect cleaned blood from the scene after the confrontation and before calling an ambulance or the police. Testimony also indicates that the visiting couple took the victim’s mobile phone with them as they left the apartment.
Upon their arrest, the three women made varying assertions. The first said she was not the one who killed the victim. The second claimed she knew nothing because she was asleep. The third stated, among other things, that she acted in self-defence.