Cyprus serial killer: police find two suitcases in lake after suspect ‘admits his victims were seven women and girls’

Search teams looking for four more bodies, including those of two children

A pair of suitcases have been found at the bottom of a lake by police hunting for victims of a man who has allegedly confessed to killing seven women and girls in Cyprus

Nikos Metaxas, a 35-year-old army officer, told investigators he had put three bodies in luggage that he dumped in the water, a police official said.

Search teams have intensified their operation after the two women’s bodies were found in a disused mineshaft earlier this month - a discovery which shocked the Mediterrenean island.

Another woman's corpse was also found about nine miles away, two days ago.

A robotic camera that found the two suitcases will be used to keep scouring the man-made lake for a third one suspected to be under water, fire service chief Marcos Trangolas said.

Mr Metaxas, who is being held on suspicion of murder, admitted killing five women and two girls in all, authorities said.

The father of two is separated from his wife, the Cyprus News Agency reported, adding that investigators found photos of the mineshaft in his possession.

One of the missing children is the six-year-old daughter of the first woman found dead at the mine, 38-year-old Mary Rose Tiburcio.

Investigators identified Mr Metaxas based on online chats he had with Ms Tiburcio. She had told a friend she was going to meet a man she knew from the internet before she disappeared.

The other victim from the mineshaft has been identified by Cypriot media as 28-year-old Arian Palanas Lozano, also from the Philippines.

Both women had been missing since May last year.

In questioning, the suspect gave officers directions to a military firing range, where police found a third set of decomposed remains, police said.

The army captain thought the woman he killed and discarded in the firing range pit was of Nepalese or Indian descent, the force added.

An investigator told a remand hearing she might have been Ashita Khadka Bista from Nepal.

Officers have been searching three different locations west of the capital Nicosia for a further four victims, including two children, based on what Mr Metaxas has told them.

A team of British detectives are due to arrive on the island next week to help with the investigation, police said.

The case has shocked the Mediterranean island and exposed the authorities to charges of “criminal indifference” because the dead women were foreigners.

Hundreds of people attended a protest vigil outside the presidential palace to mourn the victims and to question whether authorities failed to adequately investigate when women who worked in low-paying jobs vanished.

The main opposition party, the left-wing AKEL, called for the resignation of Cyprus’s justice minister and police chief over claims police failed to take the women’s disappearances seriously.

Agencies contributed to this report.