Verdict on Nicolaou’s death expected on May 10

The results of a death inquiry into the 2005 death of national guardsman Thanasis Nicolaou will happen after Easter it was decided on Thursday.

The third inquiry into the death of Nicolaou, whose lifeless body was found under a bridge in Alassa in 2005, came to an end on Thursday.

After his family’s lawyers and the prosecution presented their closing arguments, the judge set the next trial date for May 10, when the court will determine whether his death was the result of strangulation or suicide.

During the trial on Thursday, Nicolaou’s family’s lawyers reiterated their position that the guardsman was murdered, after presenting testimonies from experts and pathologists in the previous hearings pointing, “beyond reasonable doubt” to the fact that he was strangled.

During a highly charged hearing in February, the Limassol district court former investigator Savvas Matsas said there was an ongoing conspiracy to cover-up Nicolaou’s murder.

At the start of the third inquest, last October, the two sides had decided to continue the process from where it had stopped, that is, on the basis of the new information brought to light following exhumation and examination of Nicolaou’s bones in 2020, which led to the conclusion that his death was due to a criminal act and not a suicide, as the coroner Panicos Stavrianos had ruled at the time.

On her part, public prosecutor Xenia Xenophontos maintained the suicide theory, despite the decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which condemned Cyprus for its handling of the case, also attributing responsibilities to Stavrianos.

Previously, the court rejected the request of medical examiner Stavrianos to attend the proceedings as an interested party, while subsequently he was excluded as a witness, after an objection from the family’s lawyers to the legal service’s request to submit a new forensic report.

Elsewhere the coroner had rejected a request by the legal service for testimony from pathologist Dr Andreas Marnerides and, on behalf of the family’s lawyers, medical examiner Elpida Spanoudakis, as they had no previous involvement in the case.

During the hearing, both the family’s lawyers Lito Kariolou and Athena Dima, as well as Xenophontos submitted their final arguments in writing to the judge.

During the proceedings, representatives of the Pancyprian Committee of Mothers – Relatives of the National Guard (Pemse) expressed support to the Nicolaou family outside the court, with placards and shouting slogans.