A 51-year-old man was on Thursday handed two consecutive life sentences for the murder of 51-year-old Michalis Michael and 44-year-old Marios Onisiforou in the Limassol suburb of Ypsonas 2023.

Meanwhile, his 56-year-old accomplice was found guilty of two counts of manslaughter and will be sentenced at a later date.

The 51-year-old was found guilty on two counts of premeditated murder, with the court’s decision stressing that the sentence handed down is “the most severe and only sentence provided for by the criminal code” for such an offence.

The court found that the murders had been premeditated, stating that “despite the fact that the defendants had previously been attacked by unknown persons, [the 51-year-old] nevertheless committed the murders while in a calm mental state, without losing his self-control”.

He is said to have “inflicted targeted fatal blows on the victims in the exact same part of their bodies with a knife”, which he had carried with him in advance of the murder.

Regarding the 56-year-old, the court found that he and the 51-year-old had a “common purpose” to “attack the two victims”, and that given the circumstances prior to the murders, “he could reasonably foresee the possibility of killing the victims”.

Onisiforou and Michael were attacked in Limassol in June 2023, with Onisiforou dying soon after the incident, and Michael succumbed to his wounds a week later.

The police had said at the time that the victims were defending a friend, with whom they had gone out to a pub in Ypsonas the night before the murder.

The two men drew the friend of the two victims out of the premises, with the 51-year-old and the 56-year-old attacking their victims with knives.