EVERYONE would have liked to congratulate the police for the way investigations into the murder of Andis Hadjicostis have been conducted. After 12 months of unrelenting negative publicity the force desperately needed a break, something that would help restore shattered public confidence. Solving a high profile case like the Hadjicostis murder would have silenced the police’s critics and helped rebuild the force’s tarnished reputation.

POLICE officers investigating the murder of media mogul Andis Hadjicostis a week ago have made contact with a fourth suspect who is said to have fled abroad – perhaps to Moldova – and have urged him to return to Cyprus to help their investigation, Police spokesman Michalis Katsounotos said yesterday.
“Based on our investigations so far, there are strong indications that the fourth suspect is abroad,” Katsounotos said.
He added that police investigators had managed to contact the suspect, had told him that a warrant had been issued for his arrest, and urged him to return to Cyprus to help the police with their enquiries.

CHURCHGOERS attending Sunday’s liturgy got more than they bargained for when they were handed leaflets warning of the dire consequences of a rotating presidency.
Archbishop Chrysostomos subsequently took personal responsibility for the political leaflets.
Along with a brochure explaining the Gospel in simple terms, people were handed the leaflet calling on them to say ‘OXI’ or ‘NO’ to the rotating presidency and to the weighted vote, both proposed elements of a reunified state.
Printed on glossy paper, the pamphlets attack the two concepts, asserting that they would be disastrous for Cypriot Hellenism if included in a peace plan. The unsigned leaflet also takes a swipe at President Demetris Christofias:

TWO PEOPLE are in critical condition and on life support following two serious accidents that took place in Limassol just as traffic police announced the launch of a road safety awareness campaign in a bid to halt spiraling accident tolls.
The first serious accident took place a few minutes before midnight on Sunday in Ypsonas village. According to police, a car driven by an 18-year-old man, under conditions that are being investigated crashed into a large motorcycle driven by 38-year-old Athinagoras Michael from Malia village in Limassol. The car was making its way eastward on Ilias Kannaouros street, while the motorcycle had been following a westward course.

A 33-YEAR-OLD Nicosia lawyer who was found guilty of verbally abusing and physically assaulting his neighbour last summer was yesterday in court to tell the other side of the ‘wheelie bin assault’.
This time instead of being in the dock, it was the lawyer who was in the witness stand and his neighbour who was in the dock over the August 2007 incident.
He said it had been she who had verbally accosted him, spat in his face, slapped him and scratched the right side of his neck “quite deeply”. He even had a doctor’s note certifying his injuries which was submitted as evidence.

TORRENTIAL RAIN fell across the island yesterday, causing flooding in urban areas and closing some roads to traffic. 
Fire Service spokesman Marios Kyprianou said that more than 35 emergency calls had been responded to up to early evening, mainly in Nicosia and Limassol districts. Fire units were mostly called upon to pump water from flooded shop basements and roads, especially in Limassol and Nicosia districts. Kyprianou said that given the forecast for continuing heavy rain over the next two or three days, fire service personnel will remain on standby.

A 47-YEAR-OLD Nicosia father yesterday accused an 18-year-old youth of abducting his 14-year-old daughter whom the young man was dating.
The girl’s father said he had not forcibly tried to remove his underage daughter from her boyfriend’s home because “under no circumstances” did he want to be found guilty of anything.
Although yesterday’s trial focused on a ten-day period in April 2008, the father of two said his daughter had stayed with Panayiotis Xenofondos for much longer. He said he knew this because his daughter had exchanged emails with her mother from a telephone line traced back to Xenofondos’ Latsia home.

A NICOSIA man yesterday changed his plea to guilty minutes before his trial into the beating of a 33-year-old man started.
The suspect confessed to the charge of assault causing actual bodily harm and will be sentenced next month.
According to the plaintiff the suspect had assaulted him for no apparent reason in 2007. He said he had bought an apartment from the suspect’s brother but because there had been a number of delays in delivering the property on the agreed handover date he had withheld a final payment of €3,400.
“On the day in question I was having some expensive furniture delivered and so went by the apartment only to find the developer and his brother, a carpenter, had changed the locks until I settled what I owed,” he said.