Wife accused of husband’s murder

A 40-YEAR-old Sri Lankan woman remanded in custody yesterday on suspicion of premeditated murder of her 75-year-old Cypriot husband.

Vergin Rupika Pereira was taken before Judge Angelos David yesterday lunchtime. She was arrested following the discovery on Sunday of her elderly husband, Kypros Michael, whose body was found half burnt in a bathtub at his home in the village of Arediou.
The court heard how a local police officer noticed smoke coming out of the roof of one of the houses; when he knocked on the door, the suspect immediately answered.

“The officer had noticed that she smelt strongly of petrol,” police told the court. “He asked her if anyone else was in the house and she answered there was nobody in and that her husband was not home.

“But a short time later, she changed her story saying that she believed her husband to be sleeping because she saw his car in the driveway.

“The officer entered the house but did not see anyone in the bedroom. He did, however, notice fire and smoke coming from the bathroom. He noticed that the bathroom also smelt heavily of petrol, while on the left side of the bedroom, a bundle of clothes had been set alight.”

The court heard how the officer immediately alerted an ambulance and the fire services who, after putting out the blaze, noticed a burnt body in the bath.

The results of an autopsy will be available today.

The court heard that the victim had on several occasions reported to the local police that he had been attacked by his wife, and had recently filed for divorce.

“Upon her arrest, the accused told us that she hadn’t done anything and that she was innocent,” the investigating officer told the court.

But Pereira later confessed to the crime, according to the CID officer.

Noting the seriousness of the charges, the possibility of the accused escaping abroad or to the occupied areas and the strong facts linking the accused to the crime, Judge David approved the prosecution’s notion for an eight-day remand.

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