2 Bulgarian Deaths in Cyprus 'Crime of Passion'*

By The Cyprus Mail.

A 29-year-old Bulgarian man living in Cyprus apparently knifed his partner to death outside her workplace before hanging himself nearby, in what police suspect is a crime of passion.

The incident happened at around 7.30 am Saturday at the back of a bakery in Pallouriotissa, Nicosia near the Ayios Antonios municipal market, where Galya Dimitrova, 30, also Bulgarian, met with Filip Valentinov, 29.

Dimitrova was rushed to hospital with injuries to her left arm and chest but was pronounced dead on arrival.

Some of the wounds were sustained while the victim tried to defend herself. Witnesses said that after being stabbed the woman managed to stagger into the bakery, but collapsed before being able to tell them anything.

Not long afterwards, officers patrolling the area found Valentinov hanged in a basement nearby.

"Apparently he is the perpetrator of the crime," said Nicosia police director Kypros Michaelides.

A kitchen knife, which is thought to be the murder weapon, was found near the scene where Valentinov took his own life.

Before ending up in the basement, Valentinov had tried to slash his wrists, leaving a trail of blood on the pavement outside.

Reports said the couple had been together for the past four years.

"There was a relationship between the perpetrator and the victim, which will be investigated," Michalides said.

Reports said the two had spoken briefly earlier in the morning inside the bakery and then Valentinov left.

He apparently went behind the bakery where he sat for a while before calling the victim to come outside.

At the scene, on a low dividing wall, there was a beer can, a tobacco packet and a thermos.

Witnesses saw a man wielding a knife on foot near the scene, arms bleeding.

Officers who descended on the area were led to the basement of a building across the street from the headquarters of trade union PEO, where they found Valentinov.

He reportedly used wires to hang himself.

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