UPDATE 1-Cypriot army captain gets seven life sentences for serial killings

(Recasts with sentencing)
NICOSIA, June 24 (Reuters) - A Greek Cypriot army captain
was sentenced to seven life imprisonment terms on Monday after
pleading guilty to killing five women and two children in a
three-year murder spree in which he preyed on his victims
online.
The case, involving the worst peace-time atrocities against
women in Cyprus in memory, has triggered outrage and horror on
an island where serious crime is relatively rare, and forced the
resignation of the justice minister and sacking of the police
chief.
Nicos Metaxas, 35, pleaded guilty to 12 charges relating to
the premeditated murder and abduction of the seven - who came
from the Philippines, Romania and Nepal - between September 2016
and July 2018. The two children, aged six and eight, were
daughters of two of the women.
The sentence passed down by the Assizes (Criminal) Court is
the toughest ever imposed by the Cypriot justice system.
Metaxas was taken under heavy security on Monday to a
courthouse in the capital Nicosia wearing a bullet-proof vest,
and appeared without a lawyer.
He broke down in tears as police read the indictment against
him.
"I have committed abhorrent crimes," he said, expressing
condolences to the families of the victims.
Police say the accused, a divorced father of two, met the
women online. The victims were mostly employed as housekeepers
on the island and disappeared between September 2016 and August
2018.
The police chief was sacked and the justice minister
resigned following accounts of bungled investigations by police
who did not take the disappearances seriously because the women
were foreign.
The first victim was found dead by tourists taking pictures
at a mining shaft in late April, unravelling the macabre killing
spree. The last victim discovered, the six-year-old child, was
found in a lake on July 12.