A PAKISTANI youth convicted of the murder of a 38-year-old contractor from Nicosia says he was deceived by his lawyer and wants the case reopened so he can tell the whole truth.
In July this year, Zeeshan Asghar, 22, and his Chinese roommate were found guilty of premeditated murder and conspiracy charges in connection with the slaying of Pavlos Christodoulou last year. They are both currently serving life sentences.
Christodoulou was ambushed in the lobby of a Nicosia apartment block and beaten on the head with metal pipes before he was burned alive in the boot of his BMW
The victim’s wife, 33-year-old Magda Eleftheriou, was found guilty of manslaughter, after the court said it did not have enough evidence proving she was part of a conspiracy to kill Christodoulou.
All three have appealed their sentences.
During the trial it emerged that Asghar and Eleftheriou had an extramarital affair; Magda’s defence team argued that the two suspects did not plan to kill Christodoulou but rather only injure him. Ostensibly, this was done to prevent Magda from going on a trip abroad with her husband.
But in letter addressed to Attorney-general Petros Klerides back in August, Asghar said he had been coached by his attorney to reveal only part of the truth about the murder. According to Asghar, his lawyer promised that if he took his advice he would receive the lowest possible sentence.
He went on to “implore” Klerides to reopen the case because he wanted to “cleanse his soul and see that justice is done.”
In the letter, Asghar explained that “as a young and inexperienced person, all I could do was trust my attorneys.”
However, it was only when the trial ended that he realised he made “the wrong decision.”
The prisoner has filed a complaint against his lawyer with the Disciplinary Board of Advocates. But in order for his complaint to be examined, he has to pay the board a £25 fee. Apparently Asghar has been unable to come up with the money; and has been informed by Klerides that the deadline for paying the fee is today, otherwise his complaint cannot be examined.
Newspaper commentators yesterday protested that a trivial procedure, such as payment of a small fee, should stand in the way of re-examining one of the most shocking criminal cases on record.
Asked to comment, Klerides yesterday told the Cyprus Mail that the salient law governing the payment of the fee was voted by parliament last July.
He said his aforementioned response to Asghar was merely a standardised letter format that had also been sent out to some 200 other people who wanted to file complaints against their attorneys.
“What I am supposed to do, pay these fees out of my own pocket?” he mused, saying the media was missing the point by insinuating the Attorney-general’s office was indifferent to people’s plight.
“That’s way off the mark… after all, it was parliament that passed this law, not my office,” he said.
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