THE trial of a man accused of the premeditated murder of Andreas Stylianou, aka Americanos, is set to begin on January 27, with Limassol court ordering the suspect be held in custody till then.
The court approved the prosecution’s request that the 31-year-old be held until trial, despite his defence lawyer appealing against his client being held, arguing that the restrictive terms he had suggested were sufficient to guarantee the accused’s presence in court.
According to the facts presented in court, on the night of December 7 to 8, the 31-year-old deliberately drove his car over the motorcycle of the 40-year-old victim, killing him.
Moments earlier, Americanos had fired five rounds at the accused’s house with a handgun.
On the night of the killing, police rushed to the scene in the Apostolou Andrea Haraki area where they found Stylianou’s dead body lying in the street next to his high powered, large capacity motorcycle. A handgun and five cartridges were also found in the road.
The 31-year-old told police that the victim, who was his friend, had called him earlier in the night, threatening him and his family, as he held him responsible for a search carried out by the drug squad on his car, where drugs were found.
He told police he heard the sound of a gun being loaded as he received the threats, so he subsequently left his house, got in the car and began patrolling the area.
Americanos, he said, then turned up on his motorcycle, stopping in front of his home and firing shots at it with a pistol.
A traffic police report pointed to the car having collided with the motorcycle and dragging it some ten metres, noting that the nature of the road, the path of the two vehicles and the speed which with they were travelling did not justify the severity of the collision. Therefore, police did not rule out the possibility of intentional action by the driver.
Limassol CID with the use of sniffer dogs, earlier discovered two hand grenades in usable condition, buried in the ground in a plastic box about 150 metres from the victim’s house.
Both men were known to police for drugs-related cases.
