Hadjicostis dismissed death threat as ‘nonsense’ says wife

THE WIFE of slain media owner Andis Hadjicostis told the court yesterday she heard a close friend of his on the night of the murder saying he had warned her husband his life was in danger but he had dismissed it as “nonsense.”

Fotini Papaioannou said relations with the friend, Christos Ioannou, a police officer serving with the secret service, were severed in the months following the murder after she started asking questions about what he knew.

The night when the murder took place “I heard Christos saying ‘I told him so’,” Papaioannou told the court.

She said Ioannou had informed her that he told Hadjicostis of information that one of the directors of Sigma television would be hurt.

Hadjicostis replied “this is nonsense” Papaioannou said.

“When I started asking and demanding clarification, Christos disappeared,” she said, adding that she expected him to tell police of his information but he did not. 

Hadjicostis was gunned down outside his home on January 11 last year.

The state has charged television presented Elena Skordelli, her brother Tasos Krasoupoullis and two other men with the murder.

Skordelli’s defence also questioned Papaioannou on her relationship with her first husband, concentrating on his behaviour.

Papaioannou, who has two children with her ex, said he could not accept the fact she had decided to leave him, threatening that he would take the two girls away from her.

She said she had complained to police in a bid to safeguard the children.

Papaioannou said her ex and Hadjicostis had never met before their engagement.

But whenever her ex wanted to talk to the girls he called Hadjicostis because they communicated better. 

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.