Nicosia man imprisoned for killing neighbour's cat

On October 30, 2026, the Court of Appeal in Cyprus ordered a Nicosia man, identified as G.N., to be sent immediately to the Central Prison. The court overturned a previous ruling that had granted him a two-month suspended prison sentence for killing his neighbour’s cat on August 5, 2021.

According to court details, the defendant repeatedly struck the animal on the head with a blunt object before discarding it in a rubbish bin, where it subsequently died. The prosecution, led by Elena Konstantinou, successfully argued that the original court's decision to suspend the sentence was legally flawed because it relied on the same mitigating factors for both sentencing and suspension. The appeals judges—Michalis Ambizas, Stella Christodoulidou-Messiou, and Ifigenia Stylianidou—ruled that suspending the sentence failed to reflect the objective gravity of the crime and the specific circumstances involved.

This decision marks the conclusion of the appeal process regarding the 2021 incident. The defendant has been taken into custody to serve the mandatory two-month term immediately, overturning the initial three-year suspension period.