Cyprus 'serial killer': Army captain confesses to murdering two girls and five women

An army captain has confessed to murdering five women and two girls in a serial killing case which has rocked Cyprus.

It came after police found a third body at a remote military gun range near the village of Orounta on Thursday.

The suspect had provided directions where to look, a police official said. The woman’s body has yet to be identified.

The 35-year-old man was in custody but has not been named as he is yet to be charged.

It is understood he approached the women on a dating site.

The bodies of two women had also been found in an abandoned mine shaft on April 14 and 20. They are thought to be those of two people from the Philippines reported missing in May and August last year.

Police had earlier obtained an extension of a remand order against the suspect on suspicion of killing a woman from the Philippines who disappeared in December 2017.

Police sources told Reuters the suspect also gave details of an additional victim, "either Indian or Nepalese", killed in the summer of 2018.

Two missing girls, aged six and eight, are said to be daughters of two of the victims.

Serial killings are virtually unknown in Cyprus. The last double-murder case involved the abduction and death of two women, one from Sweden and one from Ukraine, in 1993. The perpetrators were sentenced to life in jail.