NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) – A criminal court in Cyprus has acquitted five Israeli men accused of gang-raping a British woman in a hotel room, determining that her testimony was not credible and contained "fundamental contradictions." The ruling came after a series of closed-door proceedings that scrutinized the woman's statements made following the alleged incident on September 3, 2023, in Ayia Napa, a popular coastal resort town.
The court found that the inconsistencies in the woman's testimony primarily revolved around her identification of the alleged perpetrators. It noted that her initial account to investigators presented numerous "weaknesses," which, under the circumstances, were deemed not to be atypical. However, concerns about her credibility intensified as she provided "entirely incomprehensible and inconsistent" explanations regarding the contradictions in her statements, particularly those related to identifying the accused men, which included a line-up.
In its judgment, the court acknowledged that the woman, who was 20 years old at the time of the alleged assault, had consumed a significant amount of alcohol and various hallucinogens, N,N-Dimethylamphetamine (MDA) and 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), commonly referred to as "Sally" and "Molly." Despite this, the court concluded that the quantity of substances in her system was insufficient to "remove her ability for consent," as she indicated that she only felt "a little dizzy" after ingesting them.
All five Israeli defendants, aged between 19 and 20 at the time of the incident, had pleaded not guilty to the charges against them. According to police reports, the woman had identified the five Israelis from a line-up as the individuals who raped her during a party at the hotel pool. She alleged that one of the suspects forcibly took her to his hotel room after grabbing her hand while she was socializing with friends.
The woman claimed that, once in the room, the man attempted to remove her bathing suit as she resisted and pleaded for him to let her go. She described a disturbing sequence of events in which the other suspects entered the room, with one raping her while another forced her to engage in oral sex, and two others restrained her on the bed. Additionally, she reported that one suspect held her against a wall while having intercourse with her.
The woman managed to lock herself in the bathroom and called for help. Ultimately, she said she escaped the room by pushing past the suspects and returned to her friends, who accompanied her to report the incident to the police.
This ruling follows a recent evaluation by the European Court of Human Rights, which found that Cypriot law enforcement had failed in their obligation to conduct a thorough investigation regarding a British teenager's claims of gang rape by a group of Israelis during a vacation in Ayia Napa in 2019. This background highlighted ongoing concerns regarding the handling of serious allegations of sexual violence in Cyprus.
Ultimately, the court’s decision to dismiss the charges against the five Israeli men underscores the complexities involved in such cases, where the interplay of witness testimony, evidence, and substance influence plays a critical role in legal outcomes.
