Cyprus Justice Minister Ionas Nicolaou resigned on Thursday over the police’s failure to properly investigate missing migrant women who became victims of the country’s first serial killer.
After a two-hour meeting with President Nicos Anastasiades, Nicolaou said he had submitted his resignation, which was accepted by the president.
The minister denied having any responsibility in the case of the serial killer which shocked the island, and blamed the police for their failures.
Nicos Metaxas, an army officer, has confessed to the murder of five migrant women and two girls in a case which has rocked the island to its core.
A friend of Romanian national Livia Florentina Bunea, 36, said on Tuesday police did not even call her in for a statement when she reported the mother and child missing back in 2016. Bunea is believed be the first victim of the alleged serial killer, along with her eight-year-old daughter, Elena Natalia.
According to a BBC report, protesters have accused police of failing to investigate the victims’ disappearances properly because of their migrant backgrounds.
“The killings are a wake-up call,” says Lissa Jatass, a domestic worker who campaigns for the rights of migrant women in Cyprus. The BBC quotes her as saying, “Housemaids here suffer with this bad system. Women here are the least represented in society.”