Aeroporos murder: police probe urine sample and Russian mafia

By Charlie Charalambous

WITH investigations in the Andros Aeroporos murder at an apparent dead-end, attentions are now focusing on a urine sample.

TV claims concerning the urine evidence, found at the scene of the burnt- out Mazda thought to be the getaway car, were confirmed yesterday by police press spokesman Stelios Neophytou.

With a lack of any real hard evidence, police are now pinning their hopes on DNA tests of the urine.

“Yes we have found urine samples, which could help identify the attackers,” Neophytou told the Cyprus Mail yesterday.

Police are also questioning a number of foreign suspects, with suggestions that the Russian mafia could be involved in the apparent contract killing outside the Show Palace cabaret last Friday.

Informed reports claim a number of Russians have been questioned, though without any progress being made.

It is understood one of the bouncers outside the cabaret told police that he saw a fair-haired, foreign looking man waiting behind Andros’ Ford Escort just minutes before the shooting.

“We are following all leads and searching all possibilities. We can’t say the killers are Russian or any other nationality, because they could be Cypriot; nothing is a 100 per cent certain,” Neophytou said yesterday.

The police manhunt is focusing on all those who have a criminal past and had a conflict of interests with the Aeroporos clan, he added.

And Neophytou also said police had not ruled out the possibility that more than two masked gunmen might have been involved in the killing.

Pathologist Marios Matsakis made a similar suggestion as representative of the Aeroporos family during Saturday’s autopsy, which found that Andros had been hit by more than ten bullets from a rapid fire weapon.

Police say the weapon used was a Kalashnikov; ballistic tests are now being carried out on the spent cartridges.

Ukrainian artiste Olena Kulyk, still recovering in hospital after being wounded in the attack, has told police she was unable to identify the gunmen.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.