THE GRIEVING father of a young Greek Cypriot student killed in a horrific car crash involving a drunk driver in New York late last year has gone to the US to demand punishment for the man who killed her.
In an exclusive interview with New York’s Daily News, Demetris Demetriou, the father of Panayiota Demetriou from Limassol, said he went to the US to meet with prosecutors yesterday, and to pick up his daughter’s doctorate in psychology. She had just completed it on the evening of her death and had gone out to celebrate.
“She was destined for greater things,” the 53-year-old dad told the newspaper. He went to New York with his two sons Andreas, 26, and Kyriacos, 22.
“I have nothing against God, I believe she was at the wrong place at the wrong time. I don’t believe it was her fate or destiny to die there. Her life was taken by somebody who was irresponsible,” he said.
“Sure, life goes on, but life will never, ever be the same. Our life has been blackened forever. She was the shining star of our house.”
Panayiota, 30, who left Cyprus seven years ago to study in the US, was coming home from a night out with friends in the early hours of November 16, when the cab she was in was broadsided by a Range Rover.
The cab had just dropped off her friends and was heading southbound towards her home when the Range Rover travelling westwards hit the vehicle at high speed tossing it half a block.
The female taxi driver was also killed while the driver of the Range Rover was dazed but not hurt in the collision. He was named as Daryush Omar, 23, and has previously been suspected of beating a man to death in Manhattan in 2006.
The father and two sons are to meet with representatives of the Queens district attorney’s office to press the issue of Omar’s prosecution, their lawyer, Sanford Rubenstein told the newspaper.
“This family wants the maximum criminal punishment to set an example so no other family will have to suffer such a horrible tragedy,” Rubenstein said.
Panayiota’s best friend Eleni Toumarides, with whom she had been out celebrating said: “I feel very lucky to have lived her last moments with her, knowing how happy she was”. Panayiota is buried in Limassol and a hall at her former secondary school has been named in her honour.
