Janka murderer mocks judges as they jail him for life

A MAN handed a life sentence for the rape and premeditated murder of a Slovakian woman last year, yesterday clapped and mocked the judges after being told that he would spend the rest of his life in prison.

Panayiotis Netzadi, 32, had been found guilty of the kidnapping, rape and murder of 20-year-old Janka Kovacova by the Larnaca Criminal Court.
Although during custody last year Netzadi confessed to the young Slovak’s abduction, rape and murder, leading police to where he had disposed of her body, he later retracted his confession.

That did little to help his defence, as Judges Antonis Liatsos, Charalambos Poyiatzis and Stalo Hatziyiannis found him guilty beyond any doubt.
Upon being told that he would be in jail for life, Netzadi, clapped his hands and shouted, “I am free as a bird, not a fool in a cage”.

Janka was killed on August 17, 2006 after she was abducted during the early hours from outside the Grecian Bay hotel in Ayia Napa.

She had been employed at the hotel as a waitress for the summer. Her body was found buried nearly three weeks later on the side of the old Limassol-Nicosia road near the Dhali industrial area in a state of advanced decomposition.
She was fully clothed, her hands and feet bound with rope, and a black plastic bin bag was over her head.
Netzadi was arrested after an eyewitness placed his van at the scene.
Minutes before disappearing, Janka had called a male colleague sounding frightened and asking him to come quickly because she said a man in a white car was following her.
She was never heard from again.

Netzadi is likely to appeal his sentence.