Two to face charges in 2017 underworld murder

The Nicosia criminal court decided on Thursday that two defendants had a case to answer to in connection with an underworld murder attempt that took place in Nicosia in 2017.

Alexis Mavromichalis, aka Alexoui, 43, and Slovakian national Miroslav Balazovjech, aka Dydi Rudolf, face charges in connection with the attempted murder of Panayiotis Panayiotou late in the afternoon of November 20, 2017.

Panayiotou, aka Glykas, was shot five times as he was entering the apartment building where he lived in Nicosia at around 7pm.

Four shots struck him, and one hit a laptop he was holding.

He later gave police a description of his shooter but did not provide any other details. Panayiotou identified

Rudolf as the shooter in January 2020 and Mavromichalis and another man, 42-year-old Iosif Iosif, aka Sifis, as the instigators.

Sifis and Rudolf have also been implicated in an attempt against the life of businessman Nicos Rodotheou in November 2018.

Iosif had fled to the north early in 2019 to escape arrest. He was jailed by Turkish Cypriots for five years for possession of two 9mm pistols, ammunition, and illegal entry.

Rudolf too was arrested in the north after he was found holed up in a house in Kyrenia.

He did time for possession of firearms and was handed over in July 2019 face justice in the Republic.
Nicos is the brother of Andros Rodotheou who was gunned down while at a friend’s house at the village of Gerasa, Limassol, in April 2018.