ANDREAS Christodoulou, 53, was yesterday found guilty of the premeditated murder of his 42-year-old partner, Spaska Karamarinova as the court dismissed as false his claims that he accidentally killed her during sex.

The couple had a six-year-old son who was asleep in his room at the time of his mother’s death.

On Monday, January 3 this year construction worker Christodoulou from Kalopsida showed up at Larnaca police headquarters around 7am to report that his partner was possibly dead.

He accompanied the police to his home in the Larnaca village of Alethriko where the couple and their son had been living for the past two years.

However, Christodoloulou, a Christianised Turkish Cypriot, insisted on staying in the car while they discovered Karamarinova’s naked dead body lying on the bed.

An autopsy the next day showed that she was strangled to death.

Her throat and torso were covered in bruises and cuts, showing that she put up a fight, said pathologist Nicolas Charalambous.

Christodoulou told the court during his remand hearing on Tuesday, January 4 that he had been having sex with Karamarinova when at some point she started resisting.

He said that he continued intercourse and was physically violent towards her.

During the same hearing, the court was told that a psychiatrist had been observing Christodoulou since October last year.

Christodoulou was not accompanied by a lawyer.

During trial, Criminal Court heard among others the testimonies of Charalambous, police investigators, and three psychiatrists – two private ones as well as the government psychiatrist who had examined Christodoulou a little after Karamarinova was found dead.

The court rejected Christodoulou’s claims that he “didn’t take [his] pills” and had a “memory loss” in relation to Karamarinova’s death, although the two private psychiatrists testified that he took psychotropic drugs which he mixed with alcohol.

The possibility that Christodoulou was in a state of confusion during the incident was further ruled out.

A scientific expert’s opinion also led the court to reject his claim that during sex they got “stuck” and that he then grabbed her by the neck so they would get “unstuck.”

Karamarinova put up a fight while Christodoulou strangled her until her brain was starved of oxygen and she died, court ruled.

Court also ruled that the time of death must have been between 6am and 7:18am.

The time span marks the period between Karamarinova being woken up by a phone call on her mobile phone at 6am and Christodoulou showing up at Larnaca police headquarters at 7:18am.

Christodoulou has a family from a previous marriage.

Karamarinova left behind two adult daughters, aged 20 and 22, who after the death of their mother were summoned to care of their younger half-brother under the supervision of the Welfare Office.

Sentence will be handed down June 8.

Source : Cyprus Mail

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