The police are investigating an attempted murder after shots were fired at a 33-year-old man in Ayia Napa in the early hours of Friday.
“No one was injured in the shooting,” Famagusta police spokesman Andreas Konstantinou said.
According to the police, the incident occurred at around 5.40am while the man was driving in the Kokkines area of Ayia Napa, when the perpetrators allegedly opened fire on his car.
The 33-year-old escaped unharmed, but his vehicle and a nearby building were damaged in the shooting.
Shortly afterwards, a burning car was found in an open area near Avgorou. Police have since confirmed that the vehicle is linked to the case and is believed to have been used by the perpetrators to flee the scene.
“From the examinations so far, it appears that the vehicle is linked to the attempted murder,” Konstantinou said.
Citing police sources, Reporter said the car was fitted with licence plates belonging to another vehicle.
According to reports, the 33-year-old is the brother of a 48-year-old prisoner serving life sentences at the central prison in Nicosia in connection with the June 2016 murders of businessman Phanos Kalopsidiotis, police officer Elias Hadjiefthimiou and his wife Skevi.
Kalopsidiotis, 52, was shot dead alongside the police officer and his wife at the Stone Garden restaurant in Ayia Napa in June 2016.
One of the shooters, the Albanian Yiani Vogli, was killed in the incident, while a police officer at the table was seriously injured.
The couple’s two children, aged 12 and 15, were also present but escaped unharmed.
Four suspects Marios Christodoulou 39, Panayiotis Pentavkas, 38, Dejan Loy, 42, and Sofia Gregoriou, 28 were on trial for the case, facing charges of premeditated murder and conspiracy.
Meanwhile two other suspects, Charalambos Andreou, 32, and Sotira Neophytou, 30, admitted their involvement in the case.
They were each sentenced to life imprisonment and five months in prison in October 2016.
At a later hearing, Kalopsidiotis’ nephew Yiannis Theophanous Kalopsidiotis told the court that his uncle had been murdered because he had refused to allow drugs to be sold in his nightclubs and had described the accused Pentavkas as “the enemy”.
He also claimed to have heard that a businessman from Ayia Napa who had professional differences with his uncle was responsible for another murder in June 2012, in which five security guards of his uncle – three Cypriots and two Romanians – were killed in Ayia Napa, alleging that Pentavkas had also been involved in that incident.
Investigations into the case are ongoing.
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