Eighteen years for man who strangled partner

THE Criminal Court yesterday sentenced a 53-year-old contractor to 18 years in jail for strangling his Bulgarian partner back in January.

Spaska Karamarinova, 42, was found dead in the couple’s bed at their home in the Larnaca village of Alethriko, after her partner of ten years, Andreas Christodoulou, went to police and told them he had killed her.

Officers found the woman on the bed naked with clear signs of strangulation on her throat.

The couple’s six-year-old boy had been sleeping in an adjacent room during the incident.

The court ruled the death a deliberate manslaughter and rejected the defence’s position that it had been accidental, a result of sexual activity.

The court said the defendant, who was being treated by a psychiatrist at the time, never really showed remorse and had tried to shed of his responsibility by resorting to “sexual accident” scenarios.

His apology could not be perceived as real regret, the court said – “ we would have expected real regret from a man who took another human’s life, his partner no less, with tragic consequences for their little child, to be displayed … through a full admission and from a human side through real and spontaneous emotional anguish.”

The court said the victim was a young person, who not only lost her life, but her dignity was also humiliated.

“She was a woman who, as shown by the result, could not resist the male perpetrator. The defendant’s hands were enough to cause a violent and agonising death from asphyxiation,” the court said.

Referring to the couple’s child, the court said “he would not only grow up without his parents but he will always be under the shadow of the tragic fate he got dealt at such a tender age.”

The perpetrator and the victim had other children from previous relationships.

Christodoulou has five children from a previous marriage while Kamarinova left two daughters.