Nicosia district court on Thursday renewed for another eight days the remand of three men held in connection with the murder of a woman whose body was found in a field near the village of Athienou last week.

The three suspects are aged 39, 32 and 31. They are also suspected of acting in concert after the fact.

The identity of the deceased woman is still unknown.

Her badly decomposed body was found in a field near the buffer zone in Athienou.

It had been laid in a shallow grave and was brought to the open after the owner of the plot ploughed the field on Sunday. Because of the darkness however, the farmer did not realise it was a human body.

Investigators determined the woman had been killed elsewhere a long time ago and brought to the field recently and buried, wrapped in plastic bin bags.