Back in Cyprus on Sunday evening, September 29, President Nikos Christodoulides fired the chief of police and deputy director of prisons.
The move follows the escape last week and subsequent arrest earlier on Sunday of a man convicted of murdering his partner and her daughter.
Government spokesman Constantinos Letymbiotis said Christodoulides had exercised his constitutional right to dismiss police chief Stelios Papatheodorou and his deputy Dimitris Dimitriou, and had instructed the justice minister to do the same to acting prisons director Charalambos Filippidis.
At the same time, Christodoulides appointed Themistos Arnaoutis as the new police chief and Panikos Stavrou as his deputy.
He also said that, together with the Minister of Justice, he would convene a meeting of the Civil Service Commission to appoint Konstantinos Konstantinidis to the post of deputy director of prisons.
This decision was a consequence of the emergency that occurred last week. Let us recall that a dangerous criminal, 42-year-old Theodoros Theofanos, imprisoned and convicted of a brutal double murder in 2011, escaped from a prison in Cyprus.
Theofanos was allowed to visit relatives in Paphos, but managed to escape under unclear circumstances, despite being accompanied by a member of the police special forces unit (MMAD). After a long search, the criminal was arrested in Limassol.
Source: cyprusbutterfly.com.cy
