Sentencing of lifer postponed

The date for sentencing of lifer Dimitris Manalikopoulos has been postponed until Wednesday, after a postponement requested by his defence lawyer.

Dimitris Mamalikopoulos, who is already serving life imprisonment, was found guilty last Tuesday of a further 24 charges including conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder, possession and transport of firearms and ammunition and supply of cannabis.

He was found to be the ringleader in the attempted murder of Costas Charalambous, in 2019 in Larnaca, and businessman Costas Kritikos in 2020 in Ayia Napa.

The 39-year-old co-ordinated these attacks from prison, where he is serving five life sentences for the murder of four people on June 23, 2012, in Ayia Napa. They were shot in an attempt to murder businessman Phanos Kalopsidiotis.

In the Famagusta-Larnaca district court last Tuesday, Charalambos Chrysanthou, also in prison where he is serving 35 years, admitted that he carried out the two murder attempts.

Mamalikopoulos arranged for Chrysanthou to be supplied with weapons and ammunition for the two murder attempts.

Chrysanthou said he had been given drugs for carrying out the murder attempts.

The attempted murder against Charalambous was committed in November 2019 in the parking area of the building where he lived, while the attempt against Kritikos took place in February 2020 in a cafe restaurant in the centre of Ayia Napa.

Kritikos had left the cafe a few minutes before the shots were fired by Chrysanthou, who had not realised his planned victim had left.

The shooting slightly injured four people who were inside the cafeteria.