A HUSBAND and wife were yesterday found with a case to answer on drugs charges.
The Assize Court ruled that the 40-year-old woman – younger sister to convicted felon Antonis Prokopiou Kitas – and her Indian husband, 30, had a case to answer regarding four charges of conspiracy to commit a felony and drug trafficking.
The duo was discharged of two offences involving securing money from illegal profits.
The prosecution concluded its case last week and the couple’s defence team was yesterday told to present its case in September.
The alleged offences took place on April 2008 when the suspects along with 47-year-old Martha Ioannou were arrested crossing back from the occupied areas with nearly a kilo of heroin and €16,500 in cash.
The 40-year-old woman’s 11-year-old daughter was with the trio at the time. The narcotics, which were divided into two packages, were strapped to Ioannou’s chest and abdomen. Although all three initially pleaded not guilty, Ioannou changed her plea earlier this year and was sentenced to three and a half years imprisonment.
Defence lawyer Michalis Pikis said it was “very likely” Antonis Prokopiou Kitas would testify as would a number of other witnesses. The former was named by Ioannou during the course of the trial as the brains behind the drugs meeting. Ioannou also claimed she and the lives of her children were threatened by the convict if she incriminated his sister.
Kitas regained notoriety in December last year after he escaped from a private Nicosia hospital. With his escape emerged an entire catalogue of police and prison corruptions as well as details of the highly unorthodox and inappropriate handling of his incarceration. As the manhunt continued into the whereabouts of the 43-year-old convict, who was jailed for two life sentences in 1994 for the rapes and murders of two foreign women, it became clear he had been allowed by certain authorities to continue to run his underworld dealings from his private hospital room and to come and go as he pleased. Kitas was eventually caught in early January.
As part of the investigation in the entire debacle four police officers and one Central Prisons’ official face criminal prosecution and six Central Prison staff face disciplinary prosecution.
During yesterday’s Assize Court proceeding both husband and wife, who recently gave birth to their twin girls, sat side-by-side in silence. Both appeared resigned to the judgment and showed no reaction to the court’s decision. The pair managed to sneak a few minutes whispering to each other lovingly before the 30-year-old was whisked away to Nicosia’s Central Prisons where he is being held for the duration of the trial proceedings.
