Associated Press
NICOSIA, Cyprus — Cyprus’ police chief resigned on Thursday over the case of a convicted double murderer who escaped from a private clinic off prison grounds where he had been staying for months.
Iacovos Papacostas handed his resignation to Cyprus President Dimitris Christofias a day before the attorney general was due to unveil the findings of a criminal investigation into whether anyone was negligent.
In December, prisoner Antonis Prokopiou Kitas escaped from a Nicosia clinic where he had spent five months being treated for chronic digestive problems.
Kitas, who was sentenced to life in prison in 1994 for the rape and murder of a Swedish housewife and a Ukrainian dancer, remained on the run for nearly a month before police tracked him down at the home of a relative.
The incident exposed a string of embarrassing failures and dubious practices surrounding the medical treatment of long-serving convicts outside of prison.
Christofias has said he would have stopped the practice of allowing inmates convicted of serious crimes to be treated outside of prison had he known about it.
The first-floor room of 42-year-old Kitas was guarded, but Papacostas and Attorney General Petros Clerides disclosed that Kitas would often sneak out of an unlocked window at will.
Papacostas said in a statement Thursday that he had offered to resign immediately after a botched attempt to arrest Kitas on the night of his escape, but opted to remain on the job until the investigation was completed. The justice minister resigned in December.
Kitas managed to evade arrest on the night of his escape, despite being wounded in a shootout with police in an upscale Nicosia neighborhood.
Copyright 2009 Associated Press