By Iole Damaskinos and Nikolaos Prakas
Further measures will be taken by police, following two high-profile Cyprus gangland murders almost 36 hours apart, police said after a meeting on Wednesday.
The measures will not be announced as the investigations are ongoing, police media officer Eleni Constantinou said, adding however that evidence is being collected and evaluated following the murder of 45-year-old Alexis Mavromichalis, aka Alexoui, in his apartment on Tuesday night.
Alexoui was shot from around 45 metres away, reports showed, while he had stepped out on his second-floor balcony. Authorities are examining the case that he was shot by a sniper.
After being shot in the abdomen, Mavromichalis was rushed to Nicosia General, where he eventually succumbed to his wounds.
Mavromichalis, who was well known to police, was murdered just a day after a broad daylight shooting in central Limassol, where Thanasis Kalogeropoulos, also well-known to authorities, was killed.
Earlier in the morning, Police Chief Stelios Papatheodorou visited the scene of Mavromichalis’ murder, outside his flat on Verinikis Street in the Acropolis area of the capital.
Following Mavromichalis’ murder, a car was found burnt in the Kotsiatis area on the outskirts of Nicosia, resembling a similar incident that followed the murder of Kalogeropoulos in Yermasogia on Monday morning.
Speaking later in the day about the meeting the police chief had following the murders, Constantinou said that the chief was informed in depth about the details of both crimes and the findings of investigators up until now.
A shell casing was taken in for examination as evidence in the Acropolis area, the police said.
Regarding the vehicle found burnt in Kotsiatis, Constantinou said that there were no items taken from the scene, but investigations continue there to see if the vehicle is connected with the murder of Mavromichalis.
She added that the police would take further measures, but did not elaborate, saying only that no comment could be made as the investigations were ongoing.
According to Constantinou, the police are now waiting for lab results on evidence collected from the scenes of the crimes.
She added that authorities are on alert and take both incidents very seriously.
According to police, 45-year-old Mavromichalis, aka Alexoui, was shot with a single bullet around 9pm when he stood out on the balcony of his flat in Acropolis.
About 10 minutes after the shooting a burning car was found in the area of Kotsiatis, and police are also looking into whether the car is connected to the murder.
The vehicle had been reported as stolen earlier in the month but bore no number plates and so far, no conclusive evidence has been found linking it to the crime, police told state broadcaster CyBC.
Mavromichalis was well-known to authorities having been called into court for questioning in several murder gangland cases in Cyprus over the years.
The murder of Mavromichalis came a day after the murder of Kalogeropoulos in Yermasogia and police are aware the men were familiar to each other. The extent of their connection, and its link to their murders, is being examined.
According to the police, six people have been questioned and CCTV footage has been collected and is currently the main focus of the Limassol investigation’s efforts towards finding a lead to the perpetrators.
The killing of Kalogeropoulos also had the marks of a well-planned operation police said on Tuesday.
The identification of the shooters is complicated by the fact that they wore hoods, according to eye-witness accounts.
Kalogeropoulos was gunned down in broad daylight in Limassol on Monday and had been struck by 10 bullets, a post-mortem showed on Tuesday, while it was reported later that two bullets were removed from his body.
Police confirmed the victim had been shot with an automatic weapon and a pistol.
The autopsy on Kalogeropoulos showed that a severe head injury and injuries to vital organs from gun wounds were the cause of death.
The post-mortem was carried out by state pathologists Angeliki Pappetta and Orthodoxos Orthodoxou. During the post-mortem, two bullets were removed from the body.
Police had said they were on high alert after the daylight murder of Kalogeropoulos on the busy Amathountas Avenue and were very concerned about further bloodshed.
Kalogeropoulos was gunned down on the Yermasogia street on the way to his morning swim at a beach he frequented along the Limassol coastal road, after having dropped off his daughters at school.
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