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May 2 (UPI) -- Cyprus' justice minister, Ionas Nicolaou, resigned Thursday amid public backlash over law enforcement's handling of an investigation into the slayings of five migrant women and two children. Nicolaou handed his resignation to Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades at the presidential palace. He said he wasn't responsible for directly investigating the killings and he "resigned for reasons of political ethics alone."
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A 35-year-old military captain confessed to killing the seven victims between 2016 and 2018 and dumping their bodies in lakes in Mitsero and Xyliato.
"The subsequent impact of the abhorrent crime does not touch the police alone but society itself, and I am referring to attitudes and perceptions that do not do us honor," Nicolaou said. "The police and its members remain part of society and this is why the search for responsibility concerns us all."
He said he planned to ask an independent police watchdog to investigate the killings.
Anastasiades said he accepted Nicolaou's resignation with regret, "because I am being deprived of the services of one of my closest associates. I wish to highlight the political ethos that always distinguished and was always displayed by Mr. Nicolaou."
