14 years for savage murder of boy

A MAN who last year stabbed an 11-year-old boy to death on the pier of the old Limassol port was yesterday jailed for 14 years.

Salih Mehmet Ozhovarda had been playing with friends on the pier on July 14 when he was attacked by 30-year-old Andreas Nicolaou who stabbed him several times with a kitchen knife in the stomach, chest and back before driving the knife in the boy’s right temple.

Salih died soon after arriving at Limassol general hospital.

Nicolaou, a known drug user and psychopath, was caught by the marine police while trying to escape.

The Limassol Assizes Court yesterday stressed the seriousness of the “defendant’s atrocious and inhuman act, which resulted in a little child losing his life unexpectedly, and without cause”.

The court took into consideration the man’s previous drugs conviction as well as his personal circumstances, the most important being his mental condition.

Medical evidence presented during the trial suggested that the man suffered from psychotic tendencies expressed in deranged notions of a paranoid nature.

“As he said after his arrest, some Persian man got out of his body and killed the child to cause conflict between Turkey and Persia,” the court said.

The court took into account the fact that the defendant acted under such circumstances, which reduced his responsibility.

“On the other hand it also took into consideration that the defendant was a highly dangerous individual who needs to be confined and treated for a long and unspecified period of time,” the court said.

It emerged after the murder that Nicolaou had undergone treatment for psychosis twice in the Limassol psychiatric ward.

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