Cypriot police search for more victims of suspected serial killer

Cypriot police on Friday searched for more victims of a suspected serial killer, in a case which shook the Mediterranean island.

The case had further exposed the authorities to charges of “criminal indifference” because the dead women were foreigners.

Following the gruesome murders, the main opposition party, the left-wing AKEL, had called for the resignation of Cyprus’s justice minister and police chief.

Police were combing three different locations west of the capital Nicosia for victims of the suspected killer, a 35-year-old army officer who has been in detention for a week.

Police sources said the suspect had confessed to seven killings, making it by far the worst peacetime crime committed against women on the island in recent times.

“A team of British detectives is due to arrive on the island on Monday, to help with the investigation,’’ police said.

The bodies of three women, including two believed to be from the Philippines, have been recovered.

Police sources said the suspect had indicated the location of the third body, found on Thursday, and had said the person was “either Indian or Nepali”.

“These women came here to earn a living, to help their families.

“They lived away from their families. And the earth swallowed them, nobody was interested,” AKEL lawmaker Irene Charalambides told Reuters.

“This killer will be judged by the court but the other big question is the criminal indifference shown by others when the reports first surfaced.

“I believe, as does my party, that the justice minister and the police chief should resign. They are irrevocably exposed.”

Police have said they will investigate any perceived shortcomings in their handling of the case.

One person who attempted to alert the authorities over the disappearances, a 70-year-old Cypriot citizen, said his motives were questioned by police.

One activist said a two-tier system where some non-Cypriots did not enjoy the same rights as locals had exacerbated a flawed immigration system and the vulnerability of migrant women.

“We had repeatedly said that migrants and refugees to our country are particularly vulnerable,” Doros Polycarpou, Executive Director of Kisa, a migrant and refugee support group, said.

The bodies of the two Filipino women reported missing in May and August 2018, were found in an abandoned mine shaft this month.

Police discovered the body of the third woman at an army firing range about 14 km from the mine shaft.

They are now searching for the six-year-old daughter of the first victim found, a Romanian mother who disappeared with her eight-year-old child in 2016, and a woman from the Philippines who vanished in Dec. 2017.

The suspect has not been named by authorities, in line with Cypriot legal practice.

“A public vigil for the missing was planned later.

“Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, who is visiting China, has been profoundly shocked and deeply affected by the deaths,’’ the presidency said in a statement.