Litany of errors led to trafficking victim working for convicted killer
THE COMPETENCY of government services was yesterday called into question after a convicted murderer was allowed to employ a 19-year-old woman from the Dominican Republic as his housemaid.
The incident came to light when a 53-year-old Syrian man allegedly stabbed the teen in the face in a foiled murder attempt just off the Nicosia-Limassol highway last Friday.
The teen, who was a registered victim of sexual exploitation and had been due to give evidence in cases against two cabarets in Nicosia and Limassol, had been in the man’s employment for the past six months.
The 53-year-old, a naturalised Cypriot since 1989, apparently suffered from psychological problems and was receiving financial aid. Claiming he was unable to look after himself, the man had applied for home help, which was granted by the Interior Ministry’s Civil Registry and Migration Department.
Anny Shakalli, Director of Civil Registry and Migration confirmed an “investigation into the circumstances under which the victim was approved to work as a housemaid in the suspect’s family” was under way.
Shakalli did not want to comment on the case further. She said a meeting had been called for next week to address how to improve the system so that such cases did not slip through the cracks.
The meeting will examine how criminals have recently been issued passports while incarcerated, how missing persons have been issued identity cards and how a naturalised Cypriot had been convicted of murder without her knowledge.
Ministry sources said the department had apparently been misled to believe the man was still married and nothing in the paperwork indicated any reason for further investigation. The application form also appeared to fulfil all the necessary criteria to employ a housemaid regardless of the status of the victim.
Victims of sexual exploitation have never before been granted permits to work as housemaids, due to the relationship of dependence between employee and employer. For some reason an exception was made this time.
Sources said the Labour Ministry’s Social Welfare Services (SWS), which was responsible for the woman following her complaint to police that she had been a victim of human trafficking, had known about the man’s murder conviction.
This information was never passed on to the Interior Ministry. The same sources said the 19-year-old had been introduced to the man by a friend and had been told of his jail sentence. The identity of this friend and their links to the teen’s attacker were not yesterday known.
No one was yesterday available for comment from the SWS.
People close to the investigation said the attack had been personal and was likely unrelated to her future court testimony.
The same person said the duo had become involved during the past six months and for some reason the 53-year-old had decided to kill her and dispose of her body. A second 30-year-old Syrian man was in the car on the morning the incident occurred. He has also been arrested and remanded in custody.
“The 30-year-old is a friend of the suspect’s and it seems he asked him to help him kill the girl,” an insider said.
“He seems to be in the habit of killing his girlfriends.”
In 2001 the 53-year-old was jailed for 12 years for homicide, but only served six.
The victim was his Chinese girlfriend, who he stabbed in the bathroom. He was already divorced at the time. He is also suspected of being involved in the stabbing of a Ukrainian woman in the Czech Republic in 2000, although he has never been indicted for her murder.
It is thought the man could be stripped of his Cypriot citizenship. In the meantime he is in eight-day custody while authorities investigate Friday morning’s incident.
The attempted murder occurred at the Latsia turnoff when, feeling threatened for her life, the 19-year-old grabbed the steering wheel and swerved the car into an oncoming truck. Minutes after the crash, the older man started stabbing the young woman in the face. Investigators have said she is lucky to be alive. The teen is still recuperating at Nicosia general hospital.
‘If he was a known sociopath, why was he allowed to employ a housemaid?’
By Alexia Saoulli
HUMAN RIGHTS activists yesterday called into question why a known victim of sexual exploitation had been allowed to work for a convicted killer and why the 19-year-old had not been in the Witness Protection Programme (WPP).
KISA Executive Director Doros Polycarpou said the woman from the Dominican Republic should have never been allowed to work for the Syrian man and questioned how he had been released after only serving six years of a 12 year sentence.
But according to police sources there was no reason to believe that Friday’s attack was related to her victim status.
“Nor is there evidence to suggest that the attack was related to her testifying in court in a human trafficking case,” the source said.
Nevertheless Polycarpou said the woman should have been offered better protection.
“If he was a known sociopath, why was he allowed to employ a housemaid?” he said.
Investigators said that was a question that the Social Welfare Services and Civil Registry and Migration Department had to answer.
“The Social Welfare Services was responsible for providing shelter, financial aid, employment, psychological support and other help. How they could have let her work for a convicted killer was just idiotic,” said a second investigating officer.
No one was yesterday willing to take responsibility for what had gone wrong. Not police, the Social Welfare Services and not the Civil Registry and Migration Department.
Police said the woman had not been placed on the WPP because it had not seemed necessary.
“The Attorney-general decides who is put on the WPP of his own instigation or based on information from police. In this case, it did not seem necessary… there are hundreds of women who testify in trafficking cases,” he said.
People placed on the WPP are, among other things, offered 24-hour protection, if Cypriot, their families are also offered protection, financial aid and a change of identity. In some cases witnesses are sent abroad until the trial and in others they are sent abroad permanently or for a period of 10 to 15 years when the trial concludes.
People normally placed on the WPP were involved in serious cases such as murders, huge cases of financial fraud and drugs busts.
According to sources, there was no link between the attempted murder and the trafficking case. The motive was purely personal, they said.
But women from the Dominican Republic, China and the Ukraine were known victims of sexual exploitation, Polycarpou pointed out.
The Syrian suspect was convicted of murdering a Chinese woman in 2001 and is thought to have links to the murder of a Ukrainian woman in Prague in 2000.
Other human rights activists pointed out that it would be hard to ever prove that the murders were linked to the larger problem of human trafficking but that it warranted further investigation.
Police said the Chinese woman had not been a victim of sexual exploitation.
