Cyprus’s Attorney General has rejected a request to suspend the prosecution of the 37-year-old British man charged over the death of his three-year-old son at a hotel in Paphos. The request, made on humanitarian grounds, was turned down according to a prosecution representative who addressed Paphos District Court on Thursday.
The man’s lawyer, Alexandros Alexandrou, had submitted the request to the Attorney General on August 27. The Attorney General, the prosecution representative told the court, acknowledged the tragedy of the situation, but said this did not change the fact that a three-year-old child had died, and therefore rejected the request to suspend the case.
The 37-year-old, who faces a charge of causing his son’s death through a reckless, careless or dangerous act, appeared before the court on Thursday morning. Following the Attorney General’s decision, his lawyer said his client would not respond to the charges as had been scheduled. He asked for time until September 22, when the case was adjourned to at 9am.
The defendant had travelled to the United Kingdom after the court temporarily lifted the restrictive bail conditions imposed on him, to attend his son’s funeral and deal with matters relating to his role as guardian. Paphos District Court had ordered the temporary lifting of those conditions from August 7 to September 14. The original conditions took effect again from September 15, including a bail bond of €20,000, a ban on leaving the Republic, the surrender of his travel documents and a weekly requirement to report to Paphos Police Station, and further conditions.
The case concerns the death of a three-year-old boy who died after falling roughly 10 metres at a hotel in Paphos, on the first day of his family’s holiday in Cyprus.
(Information from Cyprus News Agency)
