CYPRIOT’S CRIME

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 98, 19 January 1935, Page 18

CYPRIOT’S CRIME

Sentence of Death

A Cypriot on whom sentence of death was passed at the Old Bailey was named Georgios Kalli Georgiou (31), a coppersmith, lie pleaded not guilty to the murder of Thomas James, a Bloomsbury boardinghouse keeper. Georgiou, who speaks little English, bad the evidence interpreted to him. Mr. Eustace Fulton, prosecuting, said Georgiou bad lived with a Miss Margaret McKinnon Watt for some months during the early part of the year. A few weeks before September 18, Miss Watt obtained a situation at a boarding-house in Torrington Square, Bloomsbury, kept by Mr. James. Georgiou took a room there, and apparently became jealous of Mr. Janies. He made accusations against Mr. Janies in regard to Miss Watt, and was told to go.

On the morning of September IS he bought a sheath knife, and told a barman that he was going to kill a girl be had lived with and then himself. In the evening be went to the boardinghouse, told the girl she did not love him any more, and caught her by the wrist. There was a struggle and she screamed for help. Mr. James came, and was seen struggling with Georgiou. The latter ran away, and Mr. James was found dead on the doorstep with a stab which had penetrated bis lung.

Later I hat evening Georgiou wont to Fannon Row Police Station, said be had slabbed Mr. James, and made a statement. In this he said he and Miss Watt were saving up to be married. T was all nerves.” the alleged statement continued. “I did not know what I was doing. We were all in the dining room together, and I began

using my knife. I can’t remember who I knifed first.”

Miss Watt, who broke down and cried in the witness-box. said as she was serving Georgiou with his dinner he said to her, “You don’t love me any more. You are not coming to Cyprus with me?” “I told him I was not,” Miss Watt continued, “and his eyes were wild as he camo toward me with a knife. I kept calling Mr. James, and at last he came. 1 was frightened when they began to struggle and ran to get help.” Georgiou, giving evidence, said Mr. James had threatened to kill him, and be bought, the knife because he was afraid he might be killed in his sleep. On the evening of the tragedy he was in the dining room with Miss Watt when Mr. James entered, and, taking up a table knife, said • “Are you going to clear out or §hall I knife you?”

Prisoner added that he was frightened and fetched his knife. Then there was a struggle with James, who raised his hand with a knife in it, and be (prisoner) could not remember what happened. When other evidence was called. Mr. Justice Goddard said’ “I will not let this case be made into a general attack on the character of Margaret Watt.”

Georgiou was fouti.l guilty, the jury adding a strong recommendation to mercy, “owing to the great provocation he received by the remarks' of Me. James.” Mr. Justice Goddard, passing sentence of death, said the law of this country, to which Georgiou was subject when he came to these shores, provided only one sentence for the ••rime. The jury’s recommendation was a matter for other hands.

Georgiou showed no emotion as the death sentence was translated to him.