A 32-YEAR-old woman, on trial for the murder of her husband, had to end a love affair with a 23-year-old man after her husband found out, the Nicosia Assizes Court heard yesterday.
Bank employee Magda Eleftheriou is facing charges of premeditated murder and conspiracy along with her Pakistani lover, Zeeshan Asghar, 22, and his Chinese roommate Yu Hong Bo, 28.
The three have been charged in relation with the brutal murder of 38-year-old contractor Pavlos Christodoulou who was bludgeoned to death and then burnt in the boot of his BMW on July 17, 2004.
A trial within a trial, which concludes today with the two sides’ closing arguments, was ordered by the court last week to decide whether to admit a verbal statement made to police by Magda, in which she said she knew her two co-defendants were going to injure her husband to cancel a family trip to the UK.
The court yesterday heard testimony from Nicosia CID inspector Katy Sophocleous, who took Magda’s statement regarding an affair she had with a 23-year-old Greek Cypriot a few months before her husband’s murder.
She said she had met the man two years before (2002) and they became close “without realising” and had an affair.
“We spoke on the phone and he sent me messages; I saw him in college,” Magda’s statement said.
“We met mainly in my neighbourhood; I met him when I went on my bicycle rides and sat in his car.
“In some cases we met at his house when his parents were absent,” the court heard.
Reading from the statement, Sophocleous said the man sent Magda cards: “In the card he wrote that he loved me and other nice words.”
The last time he gave her a card was on her birthday, on May 12, 2004.
He left it on her car windshield, the court heard.
But seven to eight months before the murder, Magda broke off the relationship after Pavlos found out because of the calls on her mobile phone.
“My husband got angry and asked me to cancel the mobile phone number,” she said.
“I did so because the relationship was something frivolous and I didn’t want to ruin my marriage,” Magda said in her statement.
She told police that her love affair was not linked to her husband’s death.
“He never threatened him or ask me to divorce him,” she said.
It is understood that at the time of the statement, Magda had not yet been informed of her husband’s death.
The court heard that after discovering about the affair, Pavlos was brusque but never hit or verbally abused her.
Sophocleous testified that in the several hours she spent with Magda at the station on July 18, 2004, she never told her that Pavlos was dead but she looked like she knew because she kept asking about when they were going to hand his body over for burial and what she would tell her two daughters.
She looked concerned but never shed a tear and said that after the funeral she would leave Cyprus and go to the UK.
During cross-examination from defence lawyer Costas Efstathiou, the court heard that the family had initially scheduled the trip for the previous week but for some reason it had been cancelled and rescheduled for the weekend when the murder took place.
The trial was adjourned for today when the two sides will present their closing arguments.
