Son held as suspect in father’s killing

A 25-year-old man was remanded in police custody for allegedly stabbing his estranged father to death on August 9 in Lefkara during an argument about his sister’s welfare.

The suspected appeared before a Larnaca district court on Monday and remanded in custody for eight days with police suggesting that the murder investigation is linked to a background of family neglect.

The badly decomposed body of the victim, 64-year-old UK Cypriot Frederick Georgiou Clifford, was found by police on Sunday noon after a friend reported him missing.

An autopsy showed the man had suffered five stab wounds to the back

He had been estranged from his family and five children and living in Lefkara village in recent years.

The assailant, who had been living in Pano Lefkara, is facing charges of premeditated murder, as police reportedly said he has admitted killing his father.

Police sources were quoted in the Politis as saying that the “serious family differences” that the young man alleged were the custody over his teenage sister, who had been removed from the father’s care two years ago and placed with the Welfare Department.