A MAN was murdered last night in the Archangelos area of Nicosia, believed to have been shot dead while sitting in his car.
According to police, Charalambos Charalambous from Nicosia, 34, was found shot in his car on Victor Hugo street near the American news monitoring station in Archangelos after 9.30pm.
Police said the man, also known as Vatrachos (Greek for frog), was “known to police”. Forensic experts were investigating the crime scene at the time of print.
A police source said it appeared the man had been ambushed by hooded men riding on a high-powered motorcycle.
A 24-year-old woman was taken to Nicosia general hospital last night suffering shock following the shooting. It was not clear whether she was in the car at the time of the murder. A hospital source said she was not injured.
Meanwhile, a 29-year-old Cypriot was yesterday remanded in custody for eight days by the Paphos district court in connection with the murder of his pregnant girlfriend and her three-year-old daughter, whose bodies were found on a deserted beach on Monday afternoon.
He has denied any part in the murders.
The suspect reported his girlfriend as missing to police at around midnight on Sunday evening.
He said the woman had left her home in Yeroskipou at approximately 7pm on Sunday night and did not return.
Julia Oborok – a 24-year-old Moldovan woman, who was four months pregnant – was found shot dead in a rental car. Her three-year-old daughter, who has not been named, was found around 50m from the car around 90 minutes after the mother was found.
Police have been told the dead woman and her Cypriot boyfriend, who lived together for the last nine months, were often heard arguing. They were also told that, in the past, she had been treated in a Paphos clinic after her boyfriend hit her in the face with a chair.
According to press reports yesterday, investigators have collected statements claiming that Oborok reportedly told a friend her boyfriend had threatened to kill her in a fit of jealousy if she should leave him or go with another man.
The three-year-old girl was found outside the car face down and near the sea. Her clothes were wet and there were no signs of bullet wounds.
There is speculation that the three-year-old was strangled before being put in the water.
State pathologist Nicolas Charalambous completed a five-hour autopsy on the bodies yesterday afternoon.
According to Charalambous, the mother died of multiple wounds to her body as a result of four shots fired from a firearm.
The pathologist said the young child died from asphyxiation, though further tests were needed to confirm the exact cause of death.
The Cyprus News Agency yesterday cited sources saying the girl had marks on her nose and mouth, indicating that her face was smothered, making suffocation a possible cause of death.
Police resumed their investigations of the area at first light yesterday, combing the shoreline and using divers to search in the sea for any pieces of evidence. A mobile phone believed to belong to the 24-year-old victim was found during the search.
Police spokesman Michalis Katsounotos spoke of a “repulsive and gruesome crime”.
An anonymous telephone tip-off led police to discover the young woman in the driver’s seat of the car, which was parked close to the beach in Achaelia village near Yeroskipou at around 2pm on Monday. The beach area where they were found is not residential and is surrounded by fields.
Paphos police spokesman, Nicos Tsappis said police officers had been “terribly shocked” by the incident and that it was “highly unusual” for such a heinous crime to take place in Paphos.
Oborok divorced her Russian Pontian husband, who is the father of the girl, one and a half years ago, and he now lives in Crete.
It is believed that the dead woman worked in a kiosk in Paphos and unconfirmed reports suggest that her Cypriot boyfriend was a local hairdresser.
