A SYRIAN man has been jailed for 12 years for the murder of Ukrainian cabaret artiste Ilona Li in June last year.
Jawad Mandour, 46, strangled Li to death in the bath of her apartment after she told him she was going to marry a Cypriot friend of his.
Mandour was arrested on the same day after he went to the Nicosia hospital emergency room for treatment for lacerations to his arm and throat.
The doctor who treated the man asked about his injuries, but after receiving vague replies, he decided to notify the police.
Mandour is a permanent resident of Cyprus, living in a flat in the suburb of Pallouriotissa with another Syrian man.
Police escorted the man to his flat on Democritos Street, where they found 22-year-old Ilona Li dead on the bathroom floor.
He claimed a Greek Cypriot man who was going to marry the Ukrainian had come to his flat that morning and erupted when he saw his future bride naked in the shower.
Mandour claimed the man had smashed a bottle and injured him on the arm. He claimed he left the flat to go to hospital where he was arrested, and insisted Li was alive when he left.
Police questioned the 22-year-old Cypriot, but released him after he presented a solid alibi.
Passing sentence, the Nicosia District Court took into consideration Mandour’s previously clean criminal record and his co-operation with the police.
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.
