Britons convicted over Cyprus death

Michael Binnington, 22, and Luke Atkinson, 23, from Chelmsford, Essex, were originally cleared of conspiracy to commit manslaughter.

But on Tuesday the island's Supreme Court overruled that decision and said the men, passengers in the car that rammed the victim's moped, will have to appear for sentencing in Cyprus on March 13.

It said they were accomplices in the death of passenger Christos Papiris, 17, and the grievous bodily harm suffered by the rider Marios Demetriou, now 18.

Their uncle Julian Harrington who was driving the rental car that hit the youths in the south-eastern resort of Protaras was jailed for 15 years last February after pleading guilty to charges of manslaughter and causing grievous bodily harm.

In a majority decision last year, the three-member Criminal Court acquitted Binnington and Atkinson after ruling that the prosecution failed to prove the two had common purpose with Harrington to harm the men on the moped.

But Supreme Court judges on Tuesday said the lower court had made a mistake, as evidence showed that both Binnington and Atkinson had "undoubtedly encouraged and had common purpose with" Harrington to "seek, pursue and punish" the Cypriot teenagers.

State prosecutor Eleni Zachariadou said the charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison, but the court was "highly unlikely" to impose a harsher sentence than Harrington's 15 years. The two Britons, believed to be in England, cannot appeal their conviction.

The state prosecutor said Cyprus has an agreement allowing British nationals to serve their sentence in UK prisons.

The incident followed a fight outside the Protaras nightclub in which a British friend of the defendants was injured. Prosecutors accused the three Britons - on holiday at the time - of setting off to take revenge on their friend's assailants. The two Cypriot youths were not at the nightclub and had not been involved in the fight.