The attack against a judicial official in Paphos raised a red alert within the police and heightened concerns about the extent of organized crime in the province.
Adding to the equation from Tuesday night is the police itself, beyond the judiciary, given that the spouse of the public prosecutor who became the new target of the perpetrators is an official of the force, and moreover, in a position of particular importance, the drug enforcement unit.
The new attack against the judiciary took the form of arson on the vehicle of the Legal Service official, rather than the placement of an explosive device as in the case of the two female colleagues on December 21 and in 2016.
The yet unidentified perpetrators set fire to the public prosecutor’s vehicle while it was parked in the parking lot of the apartment building where she resides with her family, in the area between the Technical School of Paphos and Kykkos Lyceum.
The prosecutor’s vehicle was completely destroyed by the fire, while two other vehicles belonging to tenants of the apartment building, parked next to the prosecutor’s vehicle, also suffered extensive damage.
The new attack sounded the alarm for the police authorities, coming only a few days after the previous one and while investigations to locate the perpetrators were in full swing.
The leadership of the Paphos Police Directorate, headed by Police Chief Nikos Tsappis, was on the scene from the very beginning, and the area was cordoned off while intensive searches were conducted to collect evidence, gather testimonies that would provide information, and examine visual material from the area’s closed-circuit cameras.
Authorities are also investigating the possibility that the new criminal act against the judicial official is related to the fact that her husband is responsible for the drug enforcement unit in Paphos.
According to sources who spoke on the night of the incident to Phileleftheros, the motive for the attacks against public prosecutors in Paphos seems to be more related to dissatisfaction with the progress of justice in cases involving certain individuals rather than the relationship with the position of the prosecutor’s spouse.
This action follows the attack that occurred on December 21, when a high-power explosive device detonated at the residence of a 58-year-old judicial official in Anavargos, resulting in her minor injuries from glass fragments that broke in the kitchen door.
The first attack against judicial officials was recorded in 2016 when a bomb exploded outside the home of a public prosecutor in the Emba area.
