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Media group CEO killed in Cyprus

12 January 2010 13:23 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Ayaz Abdulla â€“ APA. Andis Hadjicostis, the chief executive of one of Cyprus’s largest media groups, was murdered outside his home in Nicosia on Monday evening, police said, APA reports quoting Reuters.

"Two shots were heard and the victim was found dead outside his home" in a suburb of the capital, police spokesman Michalis Katsounodos said. "It is believed there were two assailants."

The area outside Hadjicostis’s home was cordoned off and police were conducting enquiries, Katsounodos said.

Reports suggested the killers lay in wait for Hadjicostis and shot him as he got out of his vehicle, within close distance of the U.S. embassy in Nicosia.

After firing two shots which hit him in his chest and back, they fled the scene on a high-powered motorcycle.

Hadjicostis, 42, was CEO of the Dias Media Group, which ran Sigma, a highly successful private television station, a newspaper, a radio station and a host of magazines. The group was founded by his father Costis Hadjicostis, the present Dias chairman.