TWO BRITISH men jailed in absentia over the killing of a Cypriot teenager in Protaras two years ago, have been served with European arrest warrants.
A judge will decide if 23-year-old Luke Atkinson and his cousin Michael Binnington, 22, will be extradited to the island.
The two were passengers in a car whose driver deliberately ran over 17-year-old Christos Papiris in a revenge attack after a friend of the three Britons was injured in a brawl at a disco two hours earlier.
In April, the Supreme Court sentenced the two Essex men to three years imprisonment. The sentence follows the court’s January ruling to overturn a Larnaca Criminal Court decision to clear them of wilful manslaughter.
The two, from Witham, in Essex, had returned to Britain after their acquittal and were given the term in their absence.
Julian Harrington, the driver of the rental car, was jailed for 15 years last February after pleading guilty to charges of manslaughter and causing grievous bodily harm.
The Akaki village teenager was killed after being flung onto a lamppost from the moped he was riding pillion on, while being chased and rammed three times by Harrington.
The rider of the moped, Papiris’ friend, Marios Demetriou, suffered serious injuries in the collision.
According to the Famagusta Gazette, an Essex Labour Euro MP who has been supporting the campaign to overturn their conviction has welcomed the fact that the men voluntarily attended a police station in Central London on Monday and a formal hearing in the magistrate’s court which followed.
Richard Howitt has pledged to work with the family’s solicitors to present the possible case against the pair being deported to face a prison sentence.
In an interview with the Gazette, Howitt expressed concern that the pair had not received proper representation.
“The substance of the appeal is that the original hearing in Cyprus did not meet minimum European standards of justice because they were not properly represented; indeed it is difficult for anyone to consider how you can be responsible for a road accident when sitting in the back seat of the car.”
