A Cypriot army captain on Monday tearfully apologized to the families of seven foreign women and girls for the "unjust pain" he has caused them after pleading guilty to a dozen charges of premeditated murder and kidnapping.
Reading from a prepared statement ahead of his sentencing later Monday, the suspect, Nicholas Metaxas, told a three-judge criminal court panel that he "doesn't have any clear answers" why he committed the killings and that he has "struggled" to figure out the "why and how."
The 35-year-old officer said his co-operation with police investigators was "the least" he could do to ease the pain he caused to the families of the victims and his own. Metaxas killed four Filipino women and a daughter of one of them, as well as a Nepalese woman and a Romanian mother and daughter."I cannot go back in time and undo what I have done," Metaxas, clad in a bulletproof vest, told a packed courtroom.
He asked authorities for a scientific panel to interview him in order to delve into his psyche and find the reasons for his actions in what's believed to be the east Mediterranean island nation's first serial killer case. He did speak of unspecified events in his past "decades ago" that he tried to forget.
Looking down throughout his court appearance, a state prosecutor said six of the victims died of strangulation while the seventh, of a massive head injury.
Nikos Metaxas, 35, was led into a Nicosia court under heavy security and stared grimly at the ground as a prosecutor read out a string of charges, including kidnapping and the killings of five women and two of their daughters — all foreigners.
Holding back tears, he pleaded guilty to the accusations one by one.
After the prosecutor read a long document detailing his crimes, Metaxas, who faces life in prison, read out a short handwritten statement apologising to his victims.
Metaxas, who is expected to be sentenced later Monday, said he could not explain why he had carried out the killings.
“Cypriot society will be wondering how one of its members reached this point. I have also asked myself why; I have not yet managed to find an answer,” he said in a wobbly voice.
“I have committed hateful crimes.”
It is the first time in Cypriot legal history that a defendant has faced seven counts of pre-meditated murder. Metaxas carried out the killings between September 2016 and the summer of 2018.
Relatives and friends of the five women — from the Philippines, Romania and Nepal — along with two of their daughters, have accused authorities of neglect over the cases.
The police’s failure to follow up on reports of women going missing has sparked outrage and led to the dismissal of the police chief and the resignation of the justice minister.
Protesters have accused the police of racism, saying the searches had been botched because the missing women were foreigners.
President Nicos Anastasiades criticised the police for “apparent negligence and dereliction of duty” and acknowledged that better initial investigations could have prevented some of the killings.
The trial comes after a two-month search for the bodies of the victims.
The killings went undetected for nearly three years, coming to light when tourists spotted a body brought to the surface of a mine shaft on April 14 by unusually heavy rains.
That sparked a manhunt that led to the army captain’s arrest four days later.
He then directed investigators to the sites where he had dumped the other bodies, including in a toxic lake near the capital Nicosia.
Authorities spent weeks searching the lake with help from Israeli and British experts before finding the body of a child believed to be the killer’s seventh and final victim.
State radio said the child’s body was found by divers wrapped inside a carpet with a cement block attached to it to it.
Police had previously recovered six other bodies, including remains dumped inside three suitcases found at a different site known as the Red Lake.
The Cyprus government has agreed to cover the funeral costs of all seven victims.
