Kitas angling for early release

DOUBLE murderer Antonis Kitas yesterday defended himself against accusations that his nefarious past made him an unreliable witness in the ongoing trial for the murder and strangling of a 24-year-old pregnant woman and her three-year-old daughter respectively.

Julia Oborok and her daughter Victoria were killed last December in Yeroskipou. The murder suspect is her boyfriend, a 29-year-old hairdresser who is being kept in the central prison wing as Kitas. 

Paphos Criminal Court has jurisdiction over the case.

In April, Kitas led the police to a grave in his home village of Athienou where the murder weapon was retrieved.

Kitas, aka Al Capone, says the hairdresser told him about the murders. 

He set a heartbreaking murder scene on Wednesday claiming the hairdresser allegedly told him about plunging Victoria’s head in and out of the water and then throwing her into the sea.

The defence yesterday said that Kitas was not a reliable witness given his history: murder and rape, escaping from custody, and masterminding the theft of the remains of former President Tassos Papadopoulos in 2009. 

Kitas was reportedly composed throughout a grilling, and defended himself calmly.

“I’ve done a lot in the past and guilt over my action torments me. I have decided to change and everything I’ve said is true,” he told the court.

Meanwhile, daily newspaper Politis leaked a handwritten letter from Kitas to Attorney-general Petros Clerides addressing him as “Mr. Petros” and asking to be spared five years and be let out on parole in a year and a half.

Kitas will not be eligible to apply for parole until he has served 25 years because he is serving successive sentences.

But Kitas said that if he was given five years he would “finish what (he) started” and secure life imprisonment for the hairdresser, among others.

He said he would take his wife and child and leave Cyprus forever.

The first lifer to be released on parole in Cyprus is Andreas Aristodimou, aka Yiouroukkis, who was released on Tuesday. He is banned from leaving the Republic and has to report to the police once a month or risk returning to prison.

Justice Minister Loucas Louca said in April that Kitas will not be getting special treatment in return for providing information.