European court rejects killer’s appeal

THE EUROPEAN Court of Human Rights has ruled that a Briton convicted of killing his Cypriot wife in 1997 was given a fair trial, the Attorney-general’s office said yesterday.

David Parris, then 31, was jailed for 15 years for murdering his wife Avgoustina in February 1996. The prosecution found that Parris had strangled his wife and then thrown her out of their Nicosia apartment window, eight metres from the ground, after a row about money.

The defence argued that she had fallen from the window and died from her injuries.

Parris appealed his conviction at the Supreme Court, which upheld the decision of the criminal court. He then took his case to the European Court of Human Rights, which has now ruled that Parris did receive a fair trial.

According to the announcement from the Attorney-general’s office, the European Court ruled that Parris had been given ample opportunity to dispute the testimony of the prosecution during his trial “something which he did”.

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.