NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — A criminal court in Cyprus has acquitted and dropped all charges against five Israelis accused of gang-raping a British woman in a hotel room after ruling her testimony as not credible and replete with “fundamental contradictions.”
The acquittal means the all the defendants who were between 19 and 20 years of age during the Sept. 3, 2023 alleged rape cannot be brought to trial again on the same charges that included sexual assault and abduction.
According to a Cyprus News Agency report issued late Monday that cited a criminal court announcement, the court found during closed-doors proceedings that most of the contradictions in the woman’s testimony concerned the identification of the perpetrators.
The court said the woman’s initial statement to investigators following the alleged rape presented a number of “weaknesses,” which under the circumstances weren’t “out of the ordinary.”
But investigators’ doubts regarding the woman’s credibility grew when she offered “entirely incomprehensible and inconsistent” explanations regarding the contradictions in her testimony, specifically regarding the identification of the perpetrators which also included a line-up.
The announcement — segments of which were seen by The Associated Press — also noted contradictions in the woman’s statements to police regarding who and how many of the five defendants had committed rape. According to the court, the woman initially accused three men of rape while in a subsequent statement she accused five, two of whom weren’t in the room where the rape occurred.
The court also referred to witness testimony disproving the woman’s claim that she had screamed for help and that someone had opened the door to the hotel room to let others inside.
The court said the woman – who was 20 at the time of the alleged rape – was under the influence of a “significant” amount of alcohol and the hallucinogens MDA and MDMA. popularly known as “Sally” and “Molly.”
But it found the quantities in her system weren’t enough to “remove her ability for consent” since she testified that she only felt “a little dizzy” after consuming the alcohol and drugs.
All five of the Israeli men had pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
Police had said the British woman picked the five Israelis out of a line-up as having raped her during a hotel pool party in the coastal resort town of Ayia Napa.
The woman told police that one of the five men had forcibly taken her to his room after grabbing her hand while she was partying with friends around the pool.
She said the man tried to remove her bathing suit while she pleaded with him to let her leave. The other suspects then entered the room and one had intercourse with her against her will and another forced her to perform oral sex, while two others held her down on the bed, she said.
She said one suspect also held her against a wall and had intercourse with her.
She said she managed to lock herself in the bathroom and began shouting for help. She was able to flee the room by pushing the suspects aside and rejoined her friends, who went with her to report the incident to police, she said.
The ruling came after the European Court of Human Rights ruled last month that Cyprus’ law enforcement authorities failed to live up to their obligation to thoroughly and effectively investigate a British teenager’s claims that she had been gang-raped by a group of Israelis while on a 2019 vacation in Ayia Napa.
FILE - The police van carrying the five Israelis who are accused of raping a British woman, arrives at the Famagusta District Courthouse in Paralimni, Cyprus, on Sept. 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias, File)
FILE - A relative of one from five Israelis who are accused of raping a British woman, cover her face with a bag as leaves the building of the Famagusta District Courthouse in Paralimni, Cyprus, Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias, File)
