THE Attorney-general decided to drop a 25-year-old homicide case due to lack of evidence, a military court in Nicosia heard yesterday.
The accused man was 46-year-old Michalakis Christofides, from Aglandja, who has been living in England for the past 25 years. The charges brought against Christofides were of premeditated murder and homicide of 19-year-old George Taliadoros, from Palouriotissa, on November 13, 1974.
Christofides had been a member of an army patrol which opened fire on a car in which Taliadoros was a passenger after it failed to stop for a check outside the old Pasydy building on Demosthenis Severis Street in Nicosia.
Yesterday the prosecutor told the court that the Attorney-general, after carefully examining the evidence, had decided not to pursue the case any further. Despite the seriousness of the charges the state had decided to suspend criminal prosecution.
Reports say that the medical examiner who had carried out the 1974 autopsy had died, thus depriving the state one of its key witnesses.
Around five minutes into the hearing, the judge ruled that Christofides should be discharged, but not before stressing that he was not acquitted and that the Attorney-general could decide to re-open the case in the future.
Outside the court the bewildered relatives of Taliadoros protested. They voiced their anger to reporters and spoke of ‘burial’ of the case and cover-up. A cousin of Taliadoros said the ruling was not fair, despite the suspect’s claim that he was ordered to shoot.
According to reports, after the shooting in 1974 the members of the patrol were arrested and questioned by military authorities who determined that Christofides had pulled the trigger. But the suspects, led by a conscript officer, were all released after it was decided the patrol had followed required procedures, just months after the coup and the invasion at a time when tension remained high on the island.
Christofides moved to England, only to find out in 1976 that a warrant had been issued for his arrest after the incident was raised by a deputy of the House of Representatives. But the authorities appear never to have sought to carry out the warrant by requesting the extradition of Christofides from Britain.
