INVESTIGATIONS into Thursday morning’s shooting outside a Nicosia nightclub had yesterday still produced no concrete leads, as police continued piecing together eyewitness accounts amid concerns of a possible wave of gangland violence.
Two men were injured in the incident that occurred a little after 3am outside the Elysée cabaret. Ioannis Kouyialis, 43, and Andreas Polycarpou, 34 were leaving the cabaret when an unknown assailant fired six to seven shots using a pistol. Both Kouyialis and Polycarpou suffered a gunshot each in the pelvis. They were rushed to the General Hospital, where they are still being kept under observation. Their condition is non critical.
Police believe that the assailant’s target was Kouyialis, co-owner of the Elysée. Police yesterday confirmed that Kouyialis had been brought in for questioning on a number of occasions in the past in connection with various cases, but that nothing incriminating had come up.
The gunman’s modus operandi during the incident has led police investigators to conclude he was not a professional hitman and that Kouyialis was targeted for personal reasons or business disagreements. The attacker has been described as slender, about 1.80m tall, aged around 25 and was not wearing a mask at the time.
According to eyewitnesses, the suspect, who is still at large, shot Kouyialis and then chased him down, as the victim sought refuge back in the cabaret. A third person coming out of the nightclub together with Kouyialis and Polycarpou was unhurt and fled the scene. Forensics officers also found a stray bullet jammed inside a car parked near the crime scene.
CID officer Panayiotis Pelayias, who is in charge of the case, told the Cyprus Mail yesterday that “nothing new” had come up from investigations, adding there were no leads as to the assailant’s identity.
Polycarpou, an Akaki village resident, is a special policeman and works at a weighing station, and is an employee of the Road Transport Department. He also works as a taxi driver in Nicosia, servicing one of the city’s main hotels.
A senior administrative officer at the Road Transport Department explained yesterday that Polycarpou worked part-time (paid by the hour) and that this status did not prevent him from having another job. Permanent government employees are not allowed to work elsewhere. And CID officer Pelayias clarified that Polycarpou was not on the police’s payroll, but on that of the Communications Ministry. The term “special policeman” was merely used to describe Road Transport personnel authorised to carry out checks on vehicles, he added.
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.
