THE Nicosia Assizes Court will decide tomorrow on the admissibility of the second suspect’s confession in the ongoing trial for the murder of contractor Pavlos Christodoulou, 38, who was bludgeoned to death and then burnt in the boot of his car on July 17, 2004.
The three suspects on trial for premeditated murder and conspiracy charges are: the victim’s wife 32-year-old bank employee Magda Eleftheriou, her lover Zeeshan Asghar Muhamad, 22, from Pakistan and his roommate, 28-year-old Yu Hong Bo from China.
The prosecution has already lost the right to introduce a vital confession of the first suspect, Asghar, after the court ruled it inadmissible due to a series of police irregularities. Apart from confessing to the crime, Asghar allegedly implicated the other two suspects in his statement.
The five-page confession had been written over a period of 12 hours after the suspect had verbally confessed, leaving doubts in the court’s mind as to why it would take so long to write the statement, and what happened during that time. The court also referred to lack of conclusive evidence that police had provided Asghar with food or drink during his period in custody before the statement was signed. Although ruling out claims of police beatings, the court ruled the statement inadmissible.
The court will decide tomorrow on a second ‘trial within a trial’ initiated to determine whether the confession of the second suspect, Bo, can stand in court or if it, too, will be ruled inadmissible.
The court yesterday heard the closing arguments of the prosecution and defence on Bo’s confession.
Defence lawyer, Andreas Eftychiou, raised three issues on the suspect’s treatment on the night of his arrest, which, he argued, warranted a withdrawal of his confession.
Earlier this week, Bo told the court he had returned to his flat on July 18 with his girlfriend to find it swarming with police. When he tried to get into the flat, police prevented him, taking him to CID headquarters to make a statement. He claimed that during the night police beat and slapped him until he agreed to confess that he helped Asghar kill Christodoulou. By 8am the next morning, police had a warrant for his arrest.
CID officers maintained that Bo was not an initial suspect, but that he was called in to make a voluntary statement about his co-tenant, Asghar, who was already implicated in the crime by Magda. It was only when Asghar verbally confessed, implicating Bo, and showed police the crime scenes that he became a suspect, argued police.
Summing up, Eftychiou argued that the whole procedure from Bo trying to enter the apartment until the completion of his statement was infected with blatant violations of Article 11(2) of the Constitution, referring to his rights to freedom and security, which are also protected under the European Convention of Human Rights.
Eftychiou stated that police intended to restrict Bo’s movements when they took him to make a statement because they didn’t have enough evidence for an arrest warrant. If so, this was illegal detention, he argued.
“If, despite the absence of formal constraints, police intended to keep him under control, which is effectively arrest without a warrant, this is a violation of the constitution, and unconstitutional detention makes his statement invalid.”
The defence lawyer argued that Nicosia CID chief Kypros Michaelides abused his power by preventing Bo from entering his flat during a search of the apartment. Bo was then escorted to a police car, which took him to the station 45 minutes later.
“He was pushed into the car. In the car, mid-July, he was refused fresh air, is this not depriving him of his rights? If he wasn’t under suspicion why did police escort him? Why was he there for hours, waiting for a translator until 7am?” Eftychiou asked.
He argued that the police investigator knew from Magda’s verbal statement that Asghar had planned to hit the victim with an accomplice, and that as such, he must have suspected Bo when he took him to the station. At 5am, Asghar confessed and implicated Bo, but police could not get an arrest warrant until 8am, keeping him there against his will throughout, argued Eftychiou.
“Since the translator hadn’t turned up, you could have let him go home. The detention was illegal, there is no choice but to drop the confession.”
The lawyer also argued that the statement was given under pressure, since his client was first questioned without a translator, even though his English is broken, he was up all night, had no sleep, it was hot, and he was concerned for his girlfriend who was with him.
Finally, he argued that his client was never told of his right to a lawyer or offered food and water during the whole process.
In response, lawyer for the prosecution, Rikkos Mappourides, accused the defence of misconstruing events to suit them. According to Bo’s testimony, he arrived at his flat at around 9.30pm, but the CID chief was not there until before midnight, pointed out Mappourides.
Secondly, Bo claimed his girlfriend was pregnant, but he had never referred to that before. Nor had he previously referred to the fact that she was expecting to have an operation the morning of his arrest.
He further argued that restriction of movement does not equal detention under the Constitution.
Regarding the suspect’s long wait in the reception room at CID, no testimony exists to say that they were being guarded. Bo was not actually taken from the room and confined to an office until much later when the evidence was piling up against him.
“When the first defendant (Asghar) took police to the crime scenes, the investigation took flesh, they found blood, he implicated the second defendant. At around 6am, police sought an arrest warrant for Bo, which was executed at 8.30am.”
“Meanwhile, they (Chinese couple) were not guarded, not prevented from leaving, in the common room, not closed in an office. It was not detention. There was no restriction on freedom.”
