Briton fatally stabbed for public urination in Cyprus, woman tells court

A British man was fatally stabbed in Cyprus’ popular coastal resort of Ayia Napa after he and another Briton were scolded by two Turkish Cypriot men for urinating in public, a woman told a Cypriot court on Wednesday.

George Low, a 22-year-old from Kent, England was killed early Sunday and another 22-year-old Briton was seriously wounded in a pre-dawn attack by two knife-wielding men along a busy Ayia Napa street. Police said the stabbings happened after the Britons got into a shoving match with one of their attackers.

The Cyprus News Agency reported that a 48-year-old woman told the Famagusta District Court that her 22-year-old Turkish Cypriot boyfriend disclosed to her that he and a 42-year-old friend had perpetrated the attack.Police said they are treating the case as premediated murder and attempted murder.

The Greek Cypriot woman also told the court she picked up her boyfriend from the resort shortly after the stabbing and helped him change clothes, then returned to collect his mobile telephone from a spot where he had hidden it. The two have been living together in the woman’s Larnaca home for a year, the Cyprus News Agency reported.

The woman hasn’t been charged yet, but the court ordered her into police custody for eight days to give investigators time to prepare a case against her as an accessory after the fact.

Police spokesman Andreas Angelides told AP authorities are still searching for the two alleged attackers, who have been identified as Mehmet Akpinar, 22, and Sali Ahmet, 42.

The Cyprus News Agency reported that a third Turkish Cypriot is being sought who may have helped them cross into the Turkish-occupied part of the island.

Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines since a 1974 Turkish invasion in the wake of a coup aiming at union with Greece. Cypriot authorities have no control over the north and cannot make arrests there. [AP]