A 22-year-old man was found guilty of manslaughter on Wednesday in the double murder of a couple in Nicosia in 2018.
Marios Hadjixenophontos was acquitted of a premeditated murder charge that carries a mandatory life sentence.
Hadjixenophontos was the last of four defendants on trial for the murder of Giorgos Hadjigeorgiou, 60, and his wife Dina Sergiou, 59, in 2018.
The couple were found in their bedroom on April 18, stabbed multiple times.
The court adjourned for February 11 when the defence will argue for leniency. Manslaughter carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Main defendant Loizos Tzionis, 33, pleaded guilty late in the process and got two consecutive life sentences, his girlfriend Sarah Shams, 21, was jailed for four years after she pleaded guilty to lesser charges, as did his stepbrother, Lefteris Solomou, 23, who is doing a six-year stretch.
The Nicosia criminal court amended the charge sheet, adding two counts of manslaughter on which it found the defendant guilty.
He was also found guilty of conspiracy to commit felony, robbery, burglary, abduction and transportation of offensive weapons.
In its 140-page decision, the court described Shams as the most important witness in the trial that spanned 65 lengthy hearings.
Court president Charis Poyiadjis said the court judged that Shams had not been guided by ulterior motives and was clear and direct in her testimony.
“We did not detect any effort to exaggerate or misrepresent the events,” the court said. “There are no contradictions despite the long cross examination.”
On the other hand, the court said Hadjixenophontos had engaged in a continuous effort to hide the real events, rendering himself an unreliable witness.
“Defendant four caused a very negative impression,” the court said. He was “vague and inconsistent and did not provide clear answers”.
The court said his testimony was “fabricated so as to shake off any responsibility”.
In its decision, the court said it did not accept the defendant’s version of the story that he had followed Tzionis because he had been threatened and he was afraid.
“His attempt to distance himself by lying that he didn’t remember, or he doesn’t know was obvious,” the court said, of the exchange of text messages with Tzionis.
“Defendant four is judged completely unreliable.”
However, the court judged there was no sufficient evidence to prove the element of premeditation.
“Looking at the evidence, we think the friendly relationship between defendant four and defendant one (Tzionis) cannot constitute an element of circumstantial evidence,” the court said.
Nor was the exchange of messages between April 1 and April 18, 2018.
Despite this, according to the court, certain text messages contain references to causing death.
One such text had been sent by Tzionis to Hadjixenophontos the day before the murders.
“…tonight they will die, God first,” the message said, but there was no evidence on how the defendant reacted.
The defendant knew of the possibility that Tzionis would commit murder but not the certainty, the court said.
The defendant knew of the fact that Tzionis would commit burglary, robbery even, and he had followed him willingly and accompanied him during all the stages.
He even showed impatience, according to Shams.
“Come on man, let’s go, how much longer?” he is quoted as saying.
His complicity in planning the premeditated murder was not proven, but his participation in everything else was, the court said.
“Defendant four had formed a common intention with defendant one to participate in them.” He saw Tzionis carrying the weapons, he saw him enter the victims’ home.
“The fact that he was not present during the killing does not rule out the fact that it could be a possible consequence of the common objective he had formed with defendant one.”
All four suspects involved had admitted their involvement in the crime, according to police, with Tzionis being the mastermind and the person who killed the couple.
The couple’s son, 15, was inside the house at the time but the perpetrators didn’t hurt him. Their target appeared to be a safe the 33-year-old had spotted in 2012 while doing some work at the house on Zalongou Street in the suburb of Strovolos.
The group got away with nothing as the safe Tzionis had anticipated finding had been removed.
