IT IS A bizarre tale of a bitter custody battle for a son involving alleged hit-men and kidnapping. Sarah Antoniou, a 38-year-old British Cypriot, was arrested six months ago and accused of hiring two Nigerian men to kill her ex-husband. She claims she is innocent and has gone public with her story both here and in Britain.
And, in the most recent twist, she last week defied a Cyprus court by jumping bail and absconding with her son for a second time. Police believe she travelled to the north on a new passport issued in a different name and is now back in the UK.
Now her ex-husband has spoken out. Andros Antoniou, a 48-year-old restaurant owner, said he had not wanted to go public with what he believed was an intensely private and personal matter.
Nor, he told the Sunday Mail, did he want to pick a fight with his wife.
Speaking of his anguish and concerned for his son’s whereabouts, he said he felt compelled to give his side of the story to stop “all the lies”. It was a matter of defending his “personal dignity”.
“This has gone too far now. This is the second time she has taken Alex,” he said. “Sarah needs help and I just want my son back.”
He still remembers his shock on learning that Sarah was allegedly planning to have him killed. It was last November and came in a phone call from police who said they were holding two Nigerian men in custody. Andreas was told they had “confessed that they had been hired by Sarah to kill me”.
The two Nigerians first met Sarah in a park, by chance, police told him. She struck up a conversation which allegedly led to a deal between the three. Antoniou says Sarah hired the two men to kill him, “using any means necessary and to provide photographic evidence of his death”.
Police reports state that, according to the two Nigerians, Sarah had given them 10,000 euros on clinching the deal, with 20,000 more to be paid once Antoniou was killed.
Sarah was arrested by police on charges of conspiracy to murder and was kept in custody in Nicosia Central Prisons. She denied all charges. Following the intervention of British MEP Stuart Agnew, the Attorney General reviewed Sarah’s case and reduced the charge from conspiracy to murder to conspiracy to aid and abet a murder. She was released on a 10,000 euro bail, put up by her aunt. Bail conditions prevented her from leaving Cyprus, conditions which she defied last week.
So how did the marriage of Andros and Sarah come to this?
They met in 2001 while she was working at a café in Paphos. Sarah at that time had already lived in Cyprus for more than 10 years. They married in March 2005 and had a son, Alex, who is now five. Sarah also has an 18-year-old daughter, Sophia, from a previous relationship.
The marriage eventually broke down. Much of the strain, Andros says, came from Sarah “continually threatening to take Alex away to England”.
“I was frightened and applied for him to be put on the stop list.” The stop order was applied in August, 2008
Then in April 2009, Alex fell over a toy in a play area and hurt his lower back.
“Doctors in Paphos recommended that he should rest for a month with no jumping around and that he would heal well. This is all documented,” says Andros.
Instead, and avoiding the stop list by leaving from the north, Sarah took her son back to England saying he needed to be there for medical treatment.
“It is fabrication that Alex needed treatment in the UK,” says Andros.
This was treated as kidnapping by the Cypriot authorities who contacted the British authorities and Sarah was ordered by a British court to bring Alex back to Cyprus.
“I was then told that Sarah had obstructed a court officer when he was trying to put her and my son on the plane to bring her back and that she had left. This is all documented. I was told to go to the UK to bring my son back, which I did.”
In addition to the conspiracy and kidnapping charges against Sarah, the arrest warrant issued against her for jumping bail last week and the ongoing custody battle, the couple has other court cases pending. Sarah has accused Andros of being violent towards her while he has brought a case against Sarah and her mother for verbal abuse and assault against him.
Andros, meanwhile, has faced accusations that he set up last November’s alleged hit himself, in an attempt to gain full custody of Alex.
“This is ridiculous, I would never do something like that and I had never met the two suspects’ before,” says Andros. “But the police do have evidence that they were known to Sarah and her daughter.
“It’s terrible knowing that my wife wanted me dead but I love my son very much and I want him to grow up healthy and happy. That’s why, even though I firmly believe my ex wanted me dead, I will always allow him to have a relationship with her, because she is his mother.”
