Man kills three youth after they talked to his girlfriend

Cypriot police issued an appeal on Wednesday for information leading to the arrest of a man suspected of killing three youth with a knife after he learned that one of them sent Facebook messages to his girlfriend.

The man, aged 31, was still at large 24 hours after the unprecedented triple murder in the southern city of Limassol on Tuesday night.

But police arrested the suspect's 62-year-old father and obtained a court order for his detention on charges of conspiring to commit a crime and of aiding and abetting a premeditated murder.

Police sources said the three youth had gone to a restaurant run by the suspect's father after the girl told one of them that her boyfriend had beaten her up when he learned about the Facebook messages.

But after an argument, the man allegedly armed himself with a 30-cm kitchen knife and chased the three youth almost one km in the city's commercial center.

Bystanders told police they saw the man hit and stab the three young men, aged 19 to 24, throwing them on the ground.

The suspect was reported to have thrown the knife a short distance from the murder scene and disappeared into the night. Endit