Court upholds dog owner’s acquittal in Petruna case

The supreme court has upheld a prior ruling by the Paphos criminal court which last December had acquitted a man of the charge of the involuntary manslaughter of Petruna Milchova Nikolova.

Nikolova, a 46-year-old Bulgarian national, was found fatally injured in a rural field in Yeroskipou, Paphos district, on February 22, 2018. A total of five post mortems were conducted on her body, with initial statements about death by farming equipment later turning to suspicions of dog mauling.

The owner of two Rottweilers in the vicinity was charged with involuntary manslaughter, but in December 2019 the Paphos court found said there was insufficient evidence.

The attorney-general subsequently appealed that decision with the supreme court, but lost.

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.