Police accuse ex-newsreader of hiring assassin to murder channel owner

Nicosia, Cyprus: To most viewers of Cyprus' Sigma TV, Elena Skordelli was just another pretty face in an endless schedule of soaps, game shows, and sofa chat.

Yet behind the blonde hair and girlish voice there lay a steely desire to get to the top: having started her career as a daytime television lifestyle guru, she fought her way to a coveted job as an evening news anchorwoman. Today, though, a court in the Cypriot capital, Nicosia, will be told that the 42-year-old presenter's ambition went beyond the norm.

In a case that has shocked the island the former newscaster stands accused of paying an assassin to allegedly murder her TV channel's owner after he sacked her.

Skordelli is alleged to have arranged the revenge killing of Andis Hadjicostis, 43, a broadcasting mogul who was gunned down outside his villa in Nicosia on January 11. The head of Dias Group, the largest media company in Cyprus, his execution was thought to have been linked to the divided island's long-unresolved political dispute.

Connection

Shell casings believed to have come from Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus were found at the scene of the crime, prompting speculation that it was connected to his firm's opposition to UN-backed plans to reunite the island.

Now, however, detectives have charged both Skordelli, her brother Tassos Krasopoulos, and an alleged hitman with the killing, after a fourth accomplice, Theophanis Hadjigeorgiou, was arrested and agreed to give state's evidence.

They believe that Skordelli was motivated by both revenge for her sacking and a desire to become a media mogul herself by seizing control of Dias.

Having already acquired a 20 per cent stake jointly with her brother, she attempted to buy out other Dias shareholders after Hadjicostis' death.

"Ms Skordelli was motivated by her hostility against the victim because he terminated her employment at Sigma television," state prosecutor, Savvas Matsa, told The Sunday Telegraph last week.

"It was a revenge killing, motivated by her dismissal and interconnected with her desire to buy more shares in the company.

"If found guilty of murder there can be only one sentence — life imprisonment."

Evidence

CCTV footage attached to the house of a British diplomat living some way from the killing showed the gunman escaping on a motorcycle ridden by Hadjigeorgiou, the man who is now the prosecution's star witness.

In leaked copies of the police statement, Hadjigeorgiou describes meeting Skordelli at her brother's house after she had been fired. There, he and his accomplice, Andreas Gregoriou, 33, were contracted to carry out the killing for £43,000 (Dh244,231).

They were also told that they would be offered jobs for life at Sigma television once Skordelli and her brother had taken control of the company.