A British pensioner found not guilty of the premeditated murder of his cancer-stricken wife faces further legal proceedings – and potentially jail – after Cyprus’s highest legal authority appealed against the decision of a district court that allowed him to walk free.
In a shock move, initiated at the 11th hour, the office of the island’s attorney general announced on Thursday it would appeal against the sentence and acquittal of David Hunter.
The decision means the 76-year-old former miner, held on remand for 19 months, must now face a higher court, the judgment of which could overturn his acquittal, his lawyer told the Guardian.
“We all thought that David’s ordeal in Cyprus was over last week when he was released from court with a two-year sentence,” said Michael Polak, whose legal aid group, Justice Abroad, coordinated the Briton’s defence. “Now we need to continue fighting the case for him both on his acquittal for premeditated murder and sentence for manslaughter.”
In an Orthodox Christian nation where euthanasia is outlawed, Hunter’s case had become a cause célèbre. The retiree, who did not deny asphyxiating his wife, Janice, but had always argued he had done so only after she “begged” him to relieve her of the pain of advanced leukaemia, appeared increasingly frail during a judicial drama by turns harrowing and prolonged.
“We are obviously very disappointed with the attorney general’s decision to appeal today, which gets in the way of David getting on with his life,” said Polak. “He has spent 19 months in prison and faced legal proceedings over that period that would be difficult for anyone, but especially for someone of his age.”
Cypriot prosecutors had 10 days to serve notice. On Thursday, the last day an appeal could be filed, they announced there were sufficient legal grounds to challenge the decision of a three-member district court in Paphos.
On 21 July the court had found Hunter guilty of manslaughter but not of premeditated murder, which carries a mandatory life sentence. The judgment and two-year sentence delivered 10 days later ultimately allowed him to walk free given the prison time he had already served.
Announcing the court’s reasoning for the verdict, the judge, Michalis Droussiotis, had described it as a “unique case of taking human life on the basis of feelings of love”.
Throughout, Hunter’s daughter, Lesley Cawthorne, had stood by her father, saying for several weeks he had refused to succumb to her terminally ill mother’s pleas. On Thursday, Cawthorne said the attorney general’s decision had “devastated” her family.
Hunter had in the days since his release set about starting a new life in Tremithousa, the village outside Paphos where Janice is buried and where on the night of 18 December 2021 he had “killed her to save her” in the couple’s rented maisonette.
