Nicos Metaxas, a former captain of Cyprus' army, was sentenced for life for serial murder. (Image via: BBC)

Serial Killer in Cyprus Sentenced to Life Imprisonment

Alfonsus Adi Putra
Scandal
Crime
Jun 25, 2019
2188
NICOSIA - Appearing at the court hearing on Monday (24/6), Nicos Metaxas (35), a divorced former Cypriot army captain and a father of two, was seen wearing a bulletproof vest and given strict security. Metaxas showed great remorse to the crime that he had committed, as a police officer read charges against him out loud. He referred to his deeds as “abhorrent”.

Cyprus’ court on Monday sentenced Metaxas to 7 terms of life imprisonment after he pleaded himself guilty of 12 joint charges, both abductions & murders. Based on his testimony, the man preyed his victims from online platforms for 3 years before murdering them.

Nicos Metaxas (35), a divorced former Cypriot army captain and a father of two, was found guilty of abducting 7 women and 2 children. These 7 women consisted of 3 from the Philippines (Mary Rose Tiburcio, Arian Palanas Lozano, and Maricar Valtez Arquiola), Romania (Livia Bunea) and Nepal, between September 2016 and July 2018. While those 2 children, respectively 6 years old (Sierra, Tiburcio’s daughter) and 8 years old (Elena, Bunea’s daughter). The victims worked once as housekeepers in the country. 6 of the victims died of strangulation and 1 died of severe head trauma.

German tourists led the investigation to the first victim in April 2018, found at a mining shaft when these tourists were taking pictures at the location. The rain brought the bodies and the case to light. By the finding, police investigated the case and arrested Metaxas 4 days after.

The body of Sierra was found in a lake just 3 months after. Last May, police investigations found 4 bodies of women in 3 different locations in Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus. Even worse, the bodies were found within suitcases.

However, the incident sparked a great uproar over the Cyprus island, since the rate of criminality on the island was so rare. The life imprisonment was the heaviest charge firstly taken by Cyprus’ court. Due to this incident, the chief of Cyprus police officer was fired and its Minister of Justice and Public Order, Ionas Nicolaou, resigned from office last May, due to considering himself incapable of handling the murder spree.

Last April, the Cypriots protested outside the Presidential Palace in Nicosia, in order to show their solidarity for the victims and urge the justice system to give equal consequences to Metaxas for what he had done. Cypriots thought that the slow investigation was because the police chief thought that the victims were foreigners; hence, the careless attitude.

Notice the fact that the first corpse was not found by the police but through the lenses of the tourists. This incident shows the negligence of Cyprus’ justice system and how they should handle it.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/24/world/europe/cyprus-serial-killer-sentencing.html

Scandal , Crime , Serial-murder , Cyprus , Justice , Life-sentence , Imprisonment