News / EU

Four killed in shooting in Cyprus' Ayia Napa

Friday, 24 June 2016 12:15 PM [ Last Update: Friday, 24 June 2016 12:20 PM ]

Cypriot police are seen in the coastal city of Larnaca on May 28, 2015. (AFP file photo)

In Cyprus' tourist resort of Ayia Napa, four people were killed in a shooting attack on the street during the late hours of Thursday.

Police said Friday that masked gunmen fired at a famous local businessman, the group with whom he was having dinner and his bodyguards as they were leaving a restaurant in the nightclub district of Ayia Napa at about 10:30 p.m. local time.

The 51-year-old businessman, Phanos Kalopsidiotis, his wife Skevi, 39, and an off-duty policeman in his entourage, Elias Hadjiefthymiou, 46, were killed in the attack. The couple’s teenage children were at the scene.

One of the gunmen identified as a 41-year-old Albanian was also killed as another armed off-duty policeman accompanying Kalopsidiotis fired back at the attackers. The policeman has suffered head, arm, leg and chest injuries and is in critical condition in hospital.

According to the police, the shooting attack, which also wounded one of the businessman's bodyguards, had the hallmarks of a gangland revenge.

Kalopsidiotis survived another deadly shooting that left five people dead just 600 meters (yards) from the same site four years ago.

Not far from the resort, the businessman’s father, Yiannos, was killed two years later near his home.

The attack raised fears that it might negatively affect the tourist season in Cyprus as businesses were hoping that summer travelers shifting from countries hit by terrorist attacks such as Egypt, Tunisia and Turkey head to the Mediterranean Island.

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