NICOSIA, Cyprus (AFP) — Cyprus on Monday dropped its prosecution of police officers for alleged negligence and racism over the disappearance of seven foreign women and children who were victims of a serial killer.
Prosecutors could not prove “beyond reasonable doubt” that the 15 officers had been criminally negligent, the office of attorney general George Savvides said in a statement.
“It is clear from case law that ‘error, however serious, negligence, stupidity, inadequacy or incompetence’, do not meet the level of a reckless act required for an offense of neglect of duty,” the prosecutor’s office said.
It said failure to connect the missing persons to a possible murder case did not amount to “wilful and deliberate neglect of duty”.
Greek Cypriot army captain Nikos Metaxas is serving life sentences for murdering five women and two children after pleading guilty to the killings that came to light in 2019.
The victims killed between 2016 and 2018 were from the Philippines, Romania and Nepal. The children, aged six and eight, were daughters of two of the women.
The prosecution was launched against the 15 members of the police force last May by Savvides’ predecessor for having allegedly “failed to perform their official duties”.
Although he dropped the case, Savvides criticized police.
The investigation “revealed a series of systemic problems in the police that may have to do with its organization, training and ability of its members, also a possible underlying racist perception by some members”, he said.
The case file has been handed over to police to decide on any disciplinary measures.
An independent investigation looked into how police handled reports on the missing foreigners, whose bodies were later recovered in two lakes, a field and a mineshaft.
The probe said police had shown negligence in not taking the reports on missing women and children seriously.
It was ordered amid public outrage that some of the victims could have been saved had police done their job.
The justice minister and police chief were forced to resign over the macabre killing spree that went undetected for nearly three years.
It was only exposed after tourists shooting pictures at a mineshaft stumbled across the first body in April 2019.
© Agence France-Presse
