Turkish national Mehmet Akpınar, one of the suspects in the murder of Briton George Low, 22, in Ayia Napa in August last year, has been released from prison in the north after serving three months for trespassing in a military area.
According to Turkish Cypriot daily Yeniduzen, sources close to the police said he was expelled to Turkey but this has not been officially confirmed.
Akpınar, 22, and Sali Musa Ahmet, 43, a Bulgarian passport holder, crossed over to the north through a military area and were arrested in Kyrenia on August 19 last year.
Low was stabbed to death by two men while walking with a friend on Grigori Afxentiou Street early in the morning of August 14.
Low was killed after being stabbed in his throat, severing his carotid artery. His friend, Ben Barker, who was stabbed in the back four times, survived.
The British High Commission in Cyprus had asked Turkish Cypriot authorities to hand over the suspects to the Republic, a request also made by UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson during a meeting with Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akıncı recently.
Mehmet Akpinar (left) and Sali Ahmet
Akpınar and Ahmet, who was sentenced to one year in prison, allegedly confessed to the murder to the Turkish Cypriot authorities in August last year. Both men were, however, only charged and found guilty of trespassing in a military area.
The street in which the incident took place is right next to the busy main square of the popular seaside party resort, with police saying the area was so crowded at the time of the murder that it was easy for the perpetrators to hide among the revellers.
Police originally issued arrest warrants against the suspects following testimony obtained from Koulla Anastasiou, 48, who said she lived with Akpinar in her Kamares home in Larnaca and had aided his escape to the north.
Unemployed Anastasiou implicated herself as an accessory after the fact. In a voluntary statement she had said her boyfriend had confided to her that he and Ahmet had stabbed the two British men following an altercation and that she had taken a taxi to Ayia Napa on the night of the killing, with a change of clothes for Akpinar and returned the next day to pick up a phone he had left behind.
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