NICOSIA, May 4 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades on Friday sacked the country’s police chief, as shock over the murders of seven foreign women and girls gave way to outrage at the authorities for a botched response.
A suspect identified in local media as 35-year-old Greek Cypriot army officer Nicos Metaxas has confessed to the seven killings in a crime spree that went undetected for nearly three years.
With the island reeling from what have been dubbed its first “serial killings”, Cypriot authorities have been accused of failing to properly investigate the women’s disappearances due to neglect and racism.
The president on Friday fired top police officer Zacharias Chrysostomou a day after Justice Minister Ionas Nicolaou announced his resignation over the case.
In a letter to Chrysostomou, Anastasiades decried “the apparent negligence and dereliction of duty of the police in investigating reports of missing persons”.
The president told the police chief his services were being “terminated” and that official failings had meant the murder cases were not “solved in a timely manner”.
“Some of the horrific crimes that shocked Cyprus could have been prevented,” he wrote.
The killings came to light in mid-April when unusually heavy rains brought the body of 38-year-old Filipina Mary Rose Tiburcio to the surface of the disused mine shaft where it had been hidden.
That triggered a murder investigation which led to the arrest of army captain Metaxas on April 18.
Days later, authorities found the body of a second woman in the shaft, believed to be Arian Palanas Lozano, 28, also from the Philippines.
The suspect then guided investigators to a well near an army firing range outside the capital, where police found the body of a third victim – an unidentified woman of Asian origin.
On Sunday, police recovered the remains of a fourth victim, stuffed in a suitcase at the bottom of a toxic man-made lake next to a disused mine southwest of the capital Nicosia.
Investigators on Friday paused their search for more bodies at the Mitsero lake as they waited for a sonar system to arrive from Spain, Fire Service Chief Marcos Trangolas told journalists.
Detectives who flew in from Britain to help with the investigation are expected to leave Cyprus on Friday.
Outrage over how authorities handled the case has prompted protests outside the presidential palace in the capital Nicosia.
Outgoing justice minister Nicolaou, the first senior official to quit over the scandal, said he was leaving for reasons of “principle and conscience”, while adding he had no personal involvement in the case.
Anastasiades has said the government is preparing new measures to better protect foreign workers.
On Friday he met diplomats from non-EU countries who made suggestions on how best to monitor foreign workers from third countries, India’s envoy to the island said.
Cyprus government spokesman Prodromos Prodromou said the president had “expressed his regret over the horrific crimes and apologised on behalf of the State and the Cypriot people to the representatives of these countries”. — NNN-AGENCIES
