A Greek-Cypriot army officer has been handed multiple life sentences for the premeditated murder of five foreign women and two of their children.
Nikos Metaxas (35) on Monday pled guilty to 12 charges relating to the abduction and killing of seven women and girls in Cyprus over three years.
In tears, he apologised to the victims’ families, saying he did not know why he committed the “hateful crimes”.
The case, Cyprus’s first trial of a serial killer, has stunned the island.
“Cypriot society will be wondering how one of its members reached this point. I have also asked myself why; I have not yet managed to find an answer,” Metaxas told the court.
He added that he was willing to assist authorities “in search of those answers”.
The sentence handed to Metaxas, who wore a bullet-proof vest in the courtroom, is the toughest ever imposed by the Cypriot justice system.
In sentencing the former army captain to seven prison terms of 25 years, a panel of three judges said Metaxas had “embarked on a campaign to kill defenceless women”.
He is not expected to appeal.
The killings happened between September 2016 and August 2018. Three of his victims were from the Philippines, one from Nepal and one from Romania. Most were working as housekeepers.
The two children were aged six and eight.
The country’s police chief was later sacked and the justice minister resigned over the failure to properly investigate following the missing persons reports.
The case first came to light in April, when the bodies of two women – Marry Rose Tiburcio (38) and Arian Palanas Lozano (28), both from the Philippines – were discovered. One of the bodies was spotted by tourists down a flooded mine shaft.
The discoveries triggered an investigation and, after tracking Ms Tiburcio’s online messages, police arrested Metaxas on suspicion of murder.
At first he denied killing a third Filipino woman, Maricar Valtez Arquiola (31), who was reported missing in 2017, but then changed his testimony and confessed.
The other victims were Ms Tiburcio’s daughter Sierra Graze Seucalliuc, Livia Florentina Bunea and her daughter Elena Natalia Bunea, and Asmita Khadka Bista.
Following his arrest, Metaxas showed investigators to a well at an army firing range where the body of one of the victims was discovered. Authorities then scoured two lakes in the south for two other bodies.
Metaxas reportedly gave police detailed information on how he disposed the bodies.
Leave a Reply