UK Cypriot jailed for killing man to avoid paying a drugs debt

UK Cypriot Raphael Kokkinos was sentenced to nine years in prison at the Old Bailey for the murder of Jean Loeike Guei, it emerged on Wednesday.

Kokkinos, aged 35, pleaded guilty to manslaughter for killing Guei, 23 at his flat in Streatham in September 2020 to get out of paying a drug debt. He then got the help of his pensioner mother Sophia Kokkinos and friend Aaron Williams, to dispose of the body by setting it on fire in Mitcham Common.

His mother and Williams were sentenced to three years for perverting the course of justice. Prosecutors said that Guei was killed after £40,000 worth of cocaine given to Kokkinos to store was stolen during a burglary in August 2020. This left Kokkinos with a huge debt. He told Guie he had £9,000 to pay him but stopped taking his calls.

Court heard that Guie went to Kokkinos’ apartment, where he “must have been subjected to a violent assault. He suffered lacerations to his forehead and the back of his head.”

“Over the course of a little under 48 hours, they between them got rid of Guei’s car, in which he had arrived at the address where he was to be killed. They got rid of his mobile phone, they cleaned the place up,” the prosecutor said.

“Ultimately, they got Guei’s body out of the address, into a car, and in the middle of the night took the body to Mitcham Common, dumped it and set it on fire. They even, perhaps as a final humiliation, partially stripped Guei, so that when he was found, dead and on fire, his underpants had been pulled down around his thighs.”

A cyclist found the body at around 6am. Guei was later identified by a tattoo on his right arm.