Jailed teen killer sentenced again for car theft and drug offences

The Larnaca court on Wednesday handed down another two-year sentence for car thefts and drug offences to Alexis Anastasiou, 17 who was jailed for 17 years this month for manslaughter in the stabbing to death British Cypriot Michael Antony Louis Mina, 22, in Larnaca last November.

The two-year sentence is to run concurrently, the court ruled. The four separate offences date between 2012 and 2014.

Anastasiou was jailed for stabbing Mina outside the victim’s apartment in the Mackenzie area in the early hours of November 16, acting, he claimed, in self-defence. He had said that Mina had arranged a meeting so they could settle their differences over the victim dating his ex girlfriend.

The judge ruled in the case that having previously been given a three-year suspended sentence for other offences, the system had given Anastasiou a second chance but instead he made “an unjustifiable decision, with unworthy motives, to take the life of a young person who used to be his friend and who was the true victim in the situation.” the court said.

During mitigation, the teen’s lawyer blamed the state for its failure to address his client’s delinquent behaviour and drug addiction. He said the responsibility lay with the system in its dealings with young offenders.

Anastasiou had shown signs of delinquency since childhood, started using addictive substances and then hard drugs. At the age of 14, the teen was incarcerated for three months at the central prisons where shared a cell with adult inmates serving long sentences, “which played a defining role in his subsequent behaviour”, the lawyer said.

His interaction with convicts serving long sentences and members of the underworld led to a further step towards the slippery slope that had already begun for him and pushed him further into the organised crime mindset, as after his release he became hardened and had formed criminal connections.

As regards the 17-year-old’s drug addiction, the court heard his parents had turned to several government services for help but without a response “since there was no infrastructure on the island with suitable treatments”.

According to Larnaca Press on Wednesday, Anastasiou’s lawyer has filed an appeal with the Supreme Court against his 17-year sentence.