By Anthony O. Miller
THE THREE British soldiers who killed Danish tour guide Louise Jensen with a shovel in 1994 could – despite their recent sentence reductions – wind up serving their full 25-year prison terms without any remission for good behaviour or presidential pardons.
This is because neither remission nor a presidential pardon is owed to any of the three by absolute right.
Instead, they are the respective discretion of the prison director and the president, lawyers and a prison official said.
Prisoners in Cyprus can get time off for good behaviour as “a matter of right, if they work and have good behaviour,” Prison Director George Anastassiades told the Cyprus Mail. The operative word for Anastassiades was “if”.
A presidential pardon – which cuts a sentence by 25 per cent, or even frees a prisoner – is likewise “not a right”, he said. “It depends on the decision of the president,” and is given as a matter of practice, if at all, after an election.
Efstathios Efstathiou and Christos Triantafyllides, prominent local criminal lawyers, both agreed with Anastassiades.
Time off for good behaviour is discretionary, Efstathiou said. He defended the practice, since Cyprus has no provision for convicts to be paroled (released before serving their full terms on a promise of keeping certain conditions of good conduct).
“If he (a convict) shows good behaviour – which is admittedly a vague term – he earns time off as a right,” Triantafyllides said. “It’s subsidiary legislation enacted under the criminal law.”
Like Anastassiades, neither Efstathiou nor Triantafyllides accorded convicts any “right” to a presidential pardon. But Efstathiou said a president could not grant a pardon without the Attorney-general’s approval, while Triantafyllides said the Attorney-general’s opinion was only advisory, not binding.
The three soldiers’ sentence reductions to 25 years, ordered on November 30 by the Supreme Court, sparked criticism in Cyprus and in Britain, as well as among the victim’s family.
Public reaction was heightened by news reports that Alan Ford, 29, Justin Fowler, 30, and Geoff Pernell, 27, could – with remission and possible election-year presidential pardons – actually serve little more than 12 years for their crimes.
And British MPs were outraged that the three would, despite their convictions, be eligible for their military pensions when they reach the age of 60.
The trials of the three soldiers cost the British taxpayers some £260,000 Sterling. Their successful Supreme Court appeal will add thousands of pounds to that bill.
The British public will have to pay what portion of their pensions the three had earned up to the time they were cashiered, said Rob Need, spokesman for the British Sovereign Bases, where the three had been stationed.
How is time off a prison sentence calculated? It depends on the sentence, Prison Governor Anastassiades explained: “For the first two years, they earn six days a month. After two years and up to five years, it’s eight days a month. After five years and up to eight years, it’s 10 days a month. From eight years to 12 years, it rises to 12 days a month. And after 12 years in prison, convicts can get 14 days a month” cut from their terms.
At this rate, if the squaddies earn the maximum remission – six years and six months in their cases – but get no presidential pardon, they would serve only 15 years and three months in prison.
If, however, they get a 25 per cent presidential pardon and earn the maximum remission, they could serve as little as 12 years and three months for kidnapping, sexually assaulting and killing Jensen with a shovel.
The Supreme Court granted the squaddies’ appeals of their original life sentences on grounds that the penalty was too harsh for manslaughter. The original charges of murder were reduced to manslaughter in their trial, at which the three were found guilty.
The Supreme Court also held in mitigation the fact that the soldiers were young and drunk and had no criminal records prior to stripping naked and beating to death 23-year-old Louise Jensen with 15 shovel blows after kidnapping her from her boyfriend’s motorcycle at a filling station.
Kikis Talarides, a top local defence lawyer, was palpably disgusted at the sentence reductions: “In this case, I think they shouldn’t do anything less than 25 years… Even if they were drunk – this is a horrible, horrible crime,” he said.
“Twenty-five years should be the minimum. Twelve years will not be sufficient deterrent, I think. Somebody can commit a murder and get away in 12 years’ time – that will be insufficient,” Talarides said.
