The Cyprus Supreme Court on Monday overturned the conviction of a young British woman who had been found guilty of lying about being gang-raped by up to 12 Israeli tourists.
Defence lawyers successfully argued there had been a miscarriage of justice when a district court in 2020 found the woman guilty of public mischief and handed her a suspended four-month jail term.
The teenager had in July 2019 told police she had been raped by the group of Israeli tourists, aged 15 to 22, in a hotel room in the Mediterranean island’s resort town of Aya Napa.
She was charged after she retracted her initial complaint, but later said she had been pressured by local police to do so.
A small crowd of supporters outside the Nicosia court clapped and cheered Monday when they heard the news of the decision.
The UK-based group Justice Abroad had assisted the woman and her family in their legal battle.
“This is a watershed moment,” the group’s Michael Polak, who co-ordinated the appeal, said in a statement.
He added that the woman “has always maintained her innocence, even when doing so caused her the hardship of not being able to return home during the lengthy trial proceedings.
“We have always maintained that our client was not given a fair trial, and today the Supreme Court of Cyprus has agreed with us.”
He added that “important fair trial provisions, which are in place to prevent miscarriages of justice, were totally disregarded in this case.
“A young and vulnerable woman was not only mistreated when she reported the rape to the police but she was just put through a trial process that was manifestly unfair as the Supreme Court has recognised.”
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