NICOSIA, CYPRUS: A British citizen living in Cyprus who was found guilty of murdering his terminally ill wife, has been let out of jail after spending 19 months behind bars. According to Associated Press, state prosecutor Andreas Hadjikyrou told that the court's decision to minimize the charges was based on the idea that David Hunter killed his wife “out of love,” saving her from a more painful death which she feared.
David met his love Janice Hunter while in high school and they were together for 56 years and “couldn’t bear to be apart,” their daughter Lesley Cawthorne said on the CrowdJustice campaign page which has raised more than £36,000 to pay legal bills and get her father back to the United Kingdom.
Who is David Hunter?
David Hunter, 76, faced a premeditated murder charge with a mandatory life sentence after suffocating his wife, Janice, who suffered from blood cancer for several years and wanted to die because of her severe pain. According to Justice Abroad, David was found not guilty of the charge Friday, July 28, and instead was convicted of manslaughter.
Cawthorne said that her father spent his career working in the mines and had retired with his wife to Paphos, Cyprus, and “the home he shared with my mother was a place of warmth and joy." However, Janice was diagnosed with blood cancer in 2016 and her daughter said she became “increasingly unwell” over the next five years.
“This was a terminal disease that had taken the life of her sister and the pain she was under was getting worse and worse. She wanted to die and wanted for her suffering to be ended.”
What did Cawthorne say about her father?
While Janice sat in her recliner in December 2021, David covered her mouth and nose with his hands until she stopped breathing. “My dad devoted himself to caring for my mum,” Cawthorne said, noting his subsequent incarceration. “He is now in prison in Cyprus bewildered and terrified and separated from his family and friends.” She likened her father’s incarceration and murder trial to a “nightmare.”
David Hunter took the stand during the trial to detail his wife’s “suffering and the devastating impact it had on both of them,” his daughter said. Even though assisted suicide is not recognized in the largely Christian Orthodox country, the court found Friday that David “had acted spontaneously to end the life of his wife of over 50 years upon her begging him to do so because of the pain she was under."
He was sentenced to two years in prison and subsequently ordered immediately freed Monday after he had already spent 19 months behind bars. Michael Polak, who runs Justice Abroad, said in a statement that the verdict which concluded that David Hunter was not guilty of murder and the light sentencing was “what we have been fighting for in this case." Polak added that he was “very pleased” with the court’s decision. He said that the sentencing “was not a simple one given that a case like this has never come before the courts of Cyprus before.”
Polak said that Thursday their lawyers “submitted extensive sentencing case law from across the common law world” — with examples from Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and Canada. “This has been a tragic case and difficult for all of those involved with it,” Polak said, adding that the “decision was the right one and allows David and his family to grieve together.”
