Cypriot police urged to reinvestigate rape of British woman by 12 Israelis
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The island's police is being urged to reinvestigate 12 Israelis, including a semi-pro footballer, in the gang-rape of a British woman in 2019.
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The woman maintained she was pressured by Cyprus police to withdraw her allegation
A British woman has finally won an appeal to overturn a conviction on a 2019 gang-rape case, in which she was ruled to have "lied" about being gang-raped by 12 Israeli tourists when she was on holiday in Cyprus.
The woman's lawyers successfully argued before Cyprus's Supreme Court that the trial judge ignored expert evidence and did not allow the victim to give evidence about the rape.
"This was the most deplorable of cases in which a myth was created denying the existence of gang rape, a myth which justified the rapists' behavior, shifting the blame on to the victim," the woman's lawyer said.
The victim was given a suspended four-month jail term in 2020 by the judge in her case, who found her guilty of public mischief for "lying". She told police she was gang-raped by 12 Israeli tourists in a hotel room in Cyprus's Ayia Napa on July 17, 2019, but was charged with making the story up after she signed a statement retracting her story 10 days later.
The woman maintained she was pressured by Cyprus police to withdraw her allegation without any lawyer or translator present after more than seven hours of police questioning.
During the trial, the district court judge forcibly stopped the defendant repeatedly from talking about the assault, saying: “This is not a rape trial.”
She was in a relationship with 19-year old Israeli semi-pro footballer Shimon Yusufov, and told police he held her down while she was being raped.
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The Israelis received heroes' welcome when they were released from police custody
As for the Israelis, who were aged between 15 and 22 at the time of the rape, they were released and went back to occupied Palestine where they were given a hero's welcome by their government.
Cyprus police are now being urged to re-open the investigation, as they are strangely adamant on keeping the case closed and not reopening it, with a police source saying "As far as we are concerned it is a closed case," while also denying any mishandling of the case despite all facts pointing otherwise.
