Four suspects in the case of the murder of Dorotheos Demetriades went for a beer after beating the victim to death, the Court heard on Friday.
During the hearing process for the case, investigating officers told Nicosia District Court that the suspects went for beers at a coffee shop three hours after the incident.
Demetriades, 61, died after he was beaten to death by a group of people in a housing estate in Latsia on January 4.
According to what was said in court, he had gone to the estate around 7 pm to resolve a disagreement between tenants, one of whom, a woman, was his friend.
An hour and a half earlier he had escorted his friend to Latsia police station to file a complaint against her neighbours; a 31-year-old woman and her 35-year-old partner who lived with the woman and her four children.
Attempting to resolve the issue, Demetriades, knocked on the apartment door of his friend’s neighbours.
Based on the statement given by the 31-year-old suspect, her 7-year-old son answered the door when Demetriades knocked.
At some point, the woman came to the door, and she began to argue with Demetriades, who, as she claims, slapped her.
At that point, her 35-year-old boyfriend intervened and started fighting with Demetriades, throwing him to the ground.
The court also heard that the man then told one of the woman’s children to go to the estate’s square and call for reinforcements.
Footage obtained from the apartment building’s surveillance system shows five young people arriving and starting to beat Demetriades, while he was on the floor inside the suspects’ home.
Later, a 26-year-old suspect is seen dragging Demetriades down the stairs while continuing to punch and kick him in the face and stomach. The footage also shows Demetriades getting up on his feet momentarily to descend the stairs along with five of the suspects, who arrived from the estate’s square.
After a while, police arrived at the location to find Demetriades still alive, lying near the entrance of the building. The five suspects fled when they saw the officers.
According to reports, when police approached Demetriades he told the officers “they beat me.”
Then, the 35-year-old man and the 31-year-old woman descended to the ground floor and told police that Demetriades hit them in their home.
Demetriades told an officer to help him position his body sideways because he was feeling unwell. After that, he lost consciousness. When an ambulance arrived at 7:22 pm he had already passed away.
State coroners declared him dead around 10 pm on the same day.
A post-mortem showed that he died of internal bleeding caused by injuries to his stomach and other organs.
As part of the investigation, police have received testimony from one of the 31-year-old woman’s children. They will also interrogate another child, with the help of a child psychologist. The adult suspects are also expected to be interrogated again.
On behalf of Nicosia CID, the case investigator filed a request to renew the remand for the suspects for another seven days, to continue investigations in order to determine which of them hit Demetriades after he was first attacked by the couple.
The defense counsel requested to reduce the remand to five days.
Police are continuing investigations.
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