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 Post subject: Parking Problems
PostPosted: Sat Aug 22, 2009 11:43 am 
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Row over parking space leads to fatal shooting


A 68-YEAR-OLD wife and mother was shot and killed by her husband as he tried to protect her from a group of thugs outside their home late on Thursday night, police said yesterday.

The tragedy occurred when a misunderstanding over cars and a parking space at a nearby coffee shop escalated into a full blown physical and verbal assault.

As Chrystalla Photiou lay dying on the ground her attackers, aged between their 20s and 40s, beat her 61-year-old husband to a pulp.

The incident took place in Polemidia in the Limassol district at around 11.20pm.

State pathologist Sophoclis Sophocleous said Photiou had died from a gunshot wound to the head. Three other people suffered slight injuries on their arms and legs, including two of the couple’s attackers and a female neighbour, Sophocleous said.

The victim’s husband confessed he’d fired the fatal shot that killed his wife but said he had been aiming at the group of men who had assaulted them outside their home.

Assistant chief of operations Andreas Krokos told newsmen a group of around six or seven men had followed the 61-year-old home after the coffee shop argument and started swearing at him.

When Photiou came out of the couple’s home to investigate, she was verbally and physically accosted by the angry mob and fell to the ground.

Her husband promptly entered his house and came back out with the shotgun he used for hunting, said Krokos. He fired two shots at the crowd, including the one that killed his wife. The other three injuries, including two men aged 25 and 38 and the 54-year-old female neighbour, were a result of shotgun spray, police explained.

“After the assailant fired two shots, it appears the youths grabbed the gun off him, hit him with it and then broke the shotgun,” Krokos said.

Police were immediately dispatched to the scene finding four injuries and a lifeless Photiou. The foursome was immediately transferred to Limassol general hospital for treatment.

Instead of the tragedy ending there, however, a group of youths followed the patients to the Accident and Emergency department where they proceeded to cause a disturbance forcing the three police officers at the scene to call for backup from Polemida police station. The commotion later led to the arrest of a 42-year-old man who will today appear in court for his remand hearing.

Hospital chief Chrysostomos Andronikou said: “They stopped the doctor carrying out his duties and the lives of other doctors and staff were simultaneously threatened.”

Andronikou said this sort of behaviour was unheard of in Cyprus and worse yet “they stopped doctors from treating a patient”.

He added: “A life could have been lost last night and things could be much harder, so we must all get the message and work towards finding solutions.”

Limassol police chief Andreas Koushoumis called the incident a “family tragedy” that started over something insignificant and led to Photiou’s fatal injury.

The 61-year-old, as well as the two men he injured aged 25 and 38, were yesterday arrested and remanded in custody for eight days. The former is facing charges of premeditated murder and attempted murder. The younger men face charges of assault and causing grievous bodily harm, illegal entry, illegal possession of a shotgun and threatening to use violence, said Koushoumis.

By law the fact that the victim’s husband aimed and fired his gun with the intention of harming someone else, irrespective of whether or not he failed and accidentally killed his wife instead, is considered premeditated murder, police later explained.



Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2009


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