Pafos Live 27 February 2026
Paphos Police are investigating a case of driving under the influence of alcohol against a 56-year-old driver.
According to the Police, around 20:10 on Wednesday night, a complaint was received about dangerous driving in the Tala - Emba area. Members of the Traffic Police mobilized immediately and shortly before midnight they spotted the vehicle moving on Ellados Avenue, in Paphos.
During the test that followed, the 56-year-old underwent a preliminary alcohol test with a reading of 107 milligrams, while the allowed limit is 22mg.
When asked to provide a sample for final examination, he allegedly refused to cooperate with the police authorities. The case has been registered and the 56-year-old is expected to be summoned before a Court on April 6.
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Pafos Press
A 50-year-old man from Emba, Paphos district, fell victim to a telephone scam, losing €6,860 when an unknown person called him and said he was a Revolut employee.
According to the Police, the complainant reported receiving a call on his mobile phone from Revolut Bank.
The caller claimed that suspicious activity had been detected in the complainant’s account and that third parties were attempting to gain access to it. Under the pretext of “protecting” his money, he asked him to provide personal information, as well as security codes.
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Filenews
An episodic chase unfolded on Thursday afternoon on the streets of Larnaca, resulting in the arrest of a 38-year-old foreign driver after a collision with police vehicles.
According to the Police, the incident took place around 18:40, when the driver was spotted moving dangerously in the area of the Kalo Chorio roundabout and violating a red light at a light-controlled intersection.
Police officers riding in two patrol cars signalled him to stop, however he ignored the instructions, developed speed and tried to escape. A chase ensued, during which his vehicle collided with two patrol cars, as a result of which the police stopped him and proceeded to arrest him.
No injuries were caused by the incident, while material damage was caused to the vehicles involved. From the checks that followed, it was found that the 38-year-old was driving without a driver's license and without a safety certificate, while the vehicle did not have a valid MOT and the registration certificate had been suspended.
In addition, he underwent an alcohol test, with a final result of 39 micrograms instead of the permissible limit of 22. He was arrested for flagrante delicto offenses and taken into custody for investigative purposes.
The 38-year-old is expected to be brought before a court to register his case, while the Aradippou Police Station continues the investigations.
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The presence and action of the Police last night was intense, throughout Cyprus, with organized patrols in key points of urban areas, with the aim of preventing serious criminal acts, ensuring public order and increasing the sense of security of the public.
As a result of the preventive policing operations, seven persons were arrested for various offenses, driving a vehicle without a license, non-compliance with a uniformed police officer's signal, traffic violations, illegal employment and illegal stay on the territory of the Republic of Cyprus.
As part of these operations, during the night, 234 vehicles were stopped for inspection and a total of 274 drivers and passengers were checked. At the same time, 29 inspections of premises were carried out, with the aim of dealing with phenomena of delinquency, during which three complaints emerged for offenses related to the operation of premises without the relevant licenses.
During traffic checks carried out, 91 complaints emerged, concerning various traffic violations, of which 47 driver complaints for violating the speed limit stand out. 4 traffic cases also emerged. As part of the checks, 91 alcohol tests were carried out during which one complaint emerged. As part of the police examinations, a vehicle was detained.
Coordinated policing operations, for the prevention and suppression of crime, continue every day, with increased police presence, targeted controls and immediate operational action, with the aim of increasing the sense of security of citizens, protecting citizens and ensuring public order.
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In an unprecedented move for the judicial data, the lifelong hairdresser Doros Theofanous recently proceeded with an application to reopen the case. In addition to what he was convicted of, he had strongly occupied the public opinion with his escape in 2024 that led to the dismantling of the leadership of the Police and the Prisons.
The 46-year-old lifer filed an application with the Supreme Constitutional Court due to his tertiary jurisdiction (something similar to the Supreme Court in Greece) asking for the reopening of the case for which he was convicted or even the annulment of his conviction. According to information from "F", this was done by citing new testimonies that came before him, which overturn, according to his claims, the testimony of the main prosecution witness at the time in his trial, also a lifer Antonis Prokopiou Kitas.
We note that Theofanous had filed an appeal against his conviction and sentence which was rejected. Now, with his new application – which is being made for the first time – since the Constitutional Court was established in 2023, he is asking to be tried again.
Theodoros Theofanous was sentenced on October 31, 2012 to life imprisonment for the murder of his pregnant partner, 24-year-old Yulia Oporok, while he was sentenced to 35 years in prison for the murder of her three-year-old daughter, Victoria. The horrific crime was committed on December 11, 2011, shocking Cypriot society. The hairdresser lived with the then 24-year-old foreigner, who was in the fourth month of her pregnancy and, as he had stated in his trial, was pathologically jealous of her. In fact, he had reported her disappearance to the Police.
After investigations, 24-year-old Yulia was found dead in her car in the sea area of Geroskipou and had bullet wounds to the chest and abdomen. Victoria's three-year-old daughter was found dead 50 meters away from the vehicle. The autopsy on her body showed that the little girl who apparently saw her mother's murder and ran away, died torturously in the hands of the hairdresser, who blocked her mouth and nose. As it was said in the Paphos Criminal Court, the perpetrator, while he was on trial, had confided the commission of the offense, also to the lifer Antonis Prokopiou Kitas, who testified at the trial, with his testimony being considered reliable.
A twist or something else?
Now, the lifer with the application no. 1/'26, which was filed by his lawyers Alexandros Alexandrou and Savvas Matsas, essentially asks the Constitutional Court to consider the possibility of reopening his case or even annulling his conviction. His application is based, according to what was submitted, on affidavits of three persons, plus another one who, however, has died. The application claims that after his appeal, which was rejected in 2017, new testimony emerged which, if accepted by the Court, may lead either to the annulment of his conviction or to a retrial of the case.
In essence, the testimony of the main prosecution witness, Antonis Kitas, is disputed by another testimony that emerged after his conviction, which according to what is claimed in the application, what he (Kitas) testified at first instance against the hairdresser was a lie. According to what was submitted to the Criminal Court, Kitas had given testimony in which Theophanous, while he was on trial, had confided to him that he had killed Yulia and her daughter.
Now three persons with their affidavits submitted to the Constitutional Court report that Kitas told them that he had lied against the hairdresser at the time. One of them is the former Assistant Attorney General Loukis Loukaidis, the second who filed an affidavit is a person who works in prisons and the third is a fellow villager of Kita. There is also 4th affidavit from a Pontic Greek about the same allegation, however he has died in Paphos.
It is noted that before the registration of the application, permission had been obtained from the Constitutional Court since it was judged that it was a new testimony that had not been raised in 2017 during the hairdresser's appeal. It is now expected that the Court will set the hearing of the application so that the new data can be heard, the side of the Legal Service can respond and a decision can be made. This is a novel process that attracts interest due to its nature and the fact that it involves a case of premeditated murder and homicide.
The escape and the consequences
The lifer did not only concern public opinion with the double crime he was convicted of committing in 2011. While he was serving his sentence, on 26/9/2024 and was on leave and accompanied by members of the MMAD and prison guards of the Central Prisons, he escaped, while visiting his family home in Paphos and in particular in Choletria. The lifer managed to escape despite the strict guard he had since he was accompanied by eight prison guards and members of the MMAD. A criminal and disciplinary investigation was ordered for the escape, which was recently completed with the criminal investigators identifying only disciplinary responsibilities for those involved.
After his escape, the Police launched a manhunt and his arrest was achieved three days later. He had fled to Limassol and at the time of his arrest he was on the city's promenade near five-star hotels.
Due to the uproar that broke out as a result of his escape, the President of the Republic dismissed the Chief and Deputy Chief of Police, while he also replaced the deputy director of the Central Prisons. The lifer himself faced a criminal case due to the escape and was sentenced to three years in prison.
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He will remain permanently in prison for 10 years convicted of rape and sexual abuse of his ex-partner, as the Court of Appeal unanimously rejected his appeal and upheld in its entirety the decision of the Larnaca-Famagusta Criminal Court, both in terms of his guilt and the multi-year prison sentences imposed on him.
The appellant had been found guilty of a total of ten charges, which included rape, sexual abuse by penetration, kidnapping, indecent assault, causing bodily harm, common assault and threatening, against his former partner. The Court of First Instance sentenced him to 10 years in prison for rape, 8 years for sexual abuse by penetration, 4 years for kidnapping, 2 years for each of the counts of indecent assault and causing bodily harm, 6 months for each of four counts of common assault and 1 year for the threat. The sentences were ordered to be met and to start from April 3, 2022, the date on which the accused was taken into custody.
According to the findings of the Criminal Court, the complainant, of Bulgarian origin, had been in a relationship with the accused since the end of 2020 and lived with him in Dromolaxia until March 2022. During the relationship, repeated incidents of violence were recorded. The most serious incident occurred in the early hours of April 2, 2022, when, according to the decision, the accused forced her to move with her vehicle to a secluded area in the Industrial Area of Kition, where he committed acts of sexual violence without her consent and caused bites and bruises on various parts of her body.
The complainant reported the incident on the same day and was examined by a medical examiner. Photographic material and medical findings recorded abrasions, bruises and visible tooth prints on her face, neck, back and arm.
The appeal raised nine grounds against the conviction and two against the sentence. The defense argued, inter alia, that the complainant's testimony was not reliable, that the data from closed surveillance circuits and the communications between them indicated consensual sexual intercourse, and that the Court of First Instance did not give due weight to evidence that, in its view, raised reasonable doubts. As for the sentence, it was alleged that it was excessive and that the appellant's clean criminal record was not sufficiently taken into account.
The Court of Appeal, in the decision read by Judge M. Abizas, reiterated the established jurisprudential principles according to which the evaluation of testimony belongs primarily to the court of first instance and that intervention is justified only in cases of obvious error or absurd conclusions. He held that the Criminal Court made a detailed and comprehensive assessment of the entire testimony, examined the defense's claims and reached permissible conclusions, without identifying a rift in its reasoning.
Regarding the sentence, the Court of Appeal underlined the seriousness of sexual offenses and the need to impose dissuasive penalties, especially at a time of increasing trend of such crimes. It found that the Court of First Instance had taken into account both aggravating factors and mitigating factors, including the defendant's clean criminal record, age and personal circumstances. The sentences imposed were considered within the permissible framework and not manifestly excessive.
In conclusion, the Court of Appeal rejected all the grounds of appeal and upheld the first instance decision in its entirety.
