CONVICTED double rapist and murderer Antonis Prokopiou Kitas yesterday remained tightlipped over the events of his escape and the days running up to his arrest.
The 42-year-old, who will remain in isolation for at least six days, is believed to have ripped up a lengthy statement he gave police during his five-hour interrogation on Monday afternoon.
Authorities yesterday tried again to extract details about his escape from Nicosia’s Appollonion hospital on December 12 and his movements until he was found at his cousin’s home on January 5. For one hour, he was questioned about how he had managed to slip out of the private hospital’s bedroom window, why he had been on Stassicratous Street at 2am when he was spotted by Drugs Unit police, where he had been hiding for 25 days and how he had managed to elude police.
Reports said Kitas said nothing throughout the interrogation.
Immediately after his arrest, rumours linked the killer to police as an informant. He is also believed to have accumulated a lot of money in jail despite having spent the past 14 years behind bars after he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1994.
Assistant Attorney-general Akis Papasavvas said because some mistakes had been made over the debacle, this did not make Kitas a hero with superhuman abilities.
Papasavvas said more would be revealed from the criminal investigation underway as well as the disciplinary investigation.
AG Petros Clerides added that it was currently more pressing to investigate the facts that were related to Kitas’ incarceration and escape, and not the crimes he might have committed after he’d escaped. Nevertheless it was possible that the lifer would face prosecution for those additional crimes also, although it was rare, he said.
Clerides explained that the 42-year-old had already been sentenced to two life sentences for the brutal rapes and murders of Oksana Lisna, 20, and Christina Ahfeldt, 28 and that prosecuting him for crimes of lesser importance added nothing to his initial sentences.
Meanwhile, police said further arrests linked to Kitas’ escape were imminent.
Police have already issued arrest warrants for two other men believed to have assisted the 42-year-old with his escape. Which of the two police are close to arresting was not made clear. Thirty-one-year-old Ioannis Menikou, who was also in the car on December 12, has already been arrested and is awaiting trial for his involvement.
DISY deputy Ionas Nicolaou, who has been vociferously critical of the police, said Kitas’ arrest was welcome, but that the real work began now. He said all angles of the escape had to be investigated, including the extent of the corruption which must not remain limited to the escape itself. Nicolaou said the infection that had rotted the police force had to be fully purged and that President Demetris Christofias’ government would be judged on how it handled its commitment to do just that.
