ANDREAS Kyprianou Panovic will walk free after spending seven years behind bars for the manslaughter of a 14-year-old British tourist, after the European Court of Human Rights acquitted him on the grounds that he did not get a fair trial in Cyprus.
In 2001, Panovic was sentenced to 14 years in jail for the killing of Graham Mills from Tring in Hertfordshire.
Mills was found battered to death on April 19, 2000 near the old Limassol port.
Panovic, a teenager at the time, was one of two suspects arrested by police. The other suspect, Christos Christodoulou, was the first to be held in custody, naming Panovic as his accomplice under questioning.
During his remand hearing before Limassol District Court, Christodoulou, who appeared without a lawyer, said: “I admitted the murder. We were drunk. We hit him, but when we left he was breathing. It was not premeditated.”
Soon after the arrest, police picked up 17-year-old Andreas Panovic, alias Panouris.
Panovic was later summoned to the police station with his father, who was advised over the phone that the charges against his son were serious and that they should consider hiring a lawyer.
At the station, Panovic was led to a room for questioning, while his father waited outside in a corridor, despite being told he could be with his son.
A few minutes later, the CID officer came out of the room with Panovic’s confession.
The subsequent trial heard how the Panovic and Christodoulou were in a Limassol bar when they spotted the victim, whom they followed outside. Following a brief conversation with Mills, the two Cypriots assaulted him. Mills lost consciousness, at which time one or both of the attackers struck him in the head with a large stone. They then took whatever cash was on him and left him there.
The trial itself turned controversial when Panovic’s lawyer at the time was held in contempt of court and put behind bars for five days. The court found Panovic guilty of manslaughter and passed down a 14-year jail sentence.
Through his lawyers, Panovic appealed the decision claiming that he did not receive a fair trial. The appeal was rejected in Cyprus, and in 2004 Panovic took recourse with the ECHR.
On December 11 this year, the European court found that Panovic had been wrongly tried, acquitting him of the charges.
Although it is not automatic, local authorities are now expected to comply with the ruling and immediately release Panovic from the Central Prisons.
John Mylonas, one of the lawyers who filed the appeal on behalf of Panovic, told the Mail that the court’s decision was based on a technicality.
“It was a fine line, yes. The law is not mathematics,” he said.
He said the ECHR deemed that the circumstances under which police extracted the confession were “suspicious”. Simply advising a suspect he has the right to a lawyer was not sufficient, the court said.
