A prosecution witness in the trial over the killing of 45-year-old Yiannis Argyrou told Limassol Criminal Court on Wednesday that the accused told her “I stabbed him, I stabbed him” after they left the scene. She denied a defence suggestion that she had carried out the murder herself.
The 47-year-old woman, a former defendant in the case, was the last prosecution witness. After her testimony, defence lawyer Elena Frangou told the court she would call no defence witnesses, and the court ruled that the evidence presented established a prima facie case.
Frangou said her client, a 52-year-old man, would exercise his right to remain silent. Both sides asked for time to prepare closing speeches, and the case was set for mid-December.
Argyrou was stabbed 19 times in the garage of the apartment building where he lived in the early hours of May 4, 2025. The 52-year-old denies premeditated murder.
Cross-examination
The witness’s testimony and cross-examination lasted more than five hours. She had given three statements to police and read the second of them to the court.
Frangou put it to her that she had committed the murder because she wanted the accused out of her life, and that she had chosen to read only her second statement in order to blame him. The witness denied any involvement in the killing each time. Asked whether she could rule out that the murder took place after 6am, she said she did not know.
Asked whether the victim’s blood could have transferred to the accused in a fight between the two men, she said she had not been there to know. When the defence suggested that it was not the accused who killed Argyrou, she repeated that she had nothing to do with the murder.
She rejected a suggestion that she had come to court without telling the whole truth and only to help police, saying she had come to tell the whole truth without fear.
Asked about the victim’s condition, she said he had been under the influence of drugs throughout the night, as had the accused. She said she had been too afraid to seek help.
Events before the killing
The 47-year-old told the court she had been in a relationship with the accused until Christmas 2024. She said he constantly threatened her, including saying he would harm her siblings, was very jealous and did not want her to speak to other men. She said he had been annoyed and unhappy with the victim’s behaviour.
She said the three of them used cocaine in a car and then at the victim’s home, where she said the victim made indecent advances towards her and proposed that the three have sex, which she refused.
According to her testimony, the three then went down to the garage, where the two men used cocaine. At one point, she said, the accused asked her to take his car and go for a drive, then gave her 40 euros and asked her to buy cocaine. She asked why the three of them could not go together, but he insisted she go alone. She said he partly opened the garage shutter with a remote control and she crawled out underneath it.
She said she had suspected the accused wanted to harm the victim, as he had previously told her he intended to, out of jealousy over a past relationship she had with Argyrou.
After the killing
The witness said she bought cocaine in another part of Limassol. When she returned and started down the ramp to the garage, she saw the accused coming towards her. She said he had splashes on his hand that looked like blood and was very agitated.
She said he insisted they leave at once to buy cocaine. When she asked where Argyrou was, he did not answer, she said, and would not let her go down to the garage.
According to her testimony, the accused then drove her to buy cocaine for his own use before taking her home. She said he kept his bag on him the whole time, left the motorway, drove in a zigzag and made several phone calls. At one point, she said, he took a black knife from his bag, placed it on the dashboard and told her: “I stabbed him, I stabbed him.” When she asked whom he meant, she said he replied that “they” had stabbed the postman.
She said that when she gave her first statement to police she was in a state of panic and shock, and that she was afraid of the accused because of his threats.
