I thought I was being abducted.. then cops locked me up & groped me

punching Lucas. Then, they hit me across the face and kicked me in the stomach.

“They forced me into a car and, because they had no uniforms, I thought I was being abducted. The man in the passenger seat was just laughing at me.

“This just showed me it was a misogynistic attack, and not about offending local sensibilities.”

The horrific ordeal continued when she and Lucas arrived at the police station. She said: “Two men wanted to search me – that was the excuse. I said, ‘I’m in a bikini, what could you possibly be looking for? Get off me.’

“They groped me for a few minutes. It was awful.

“Neither of us knew what was going on. It was panic central for both of us. I was just in survival mode. It was a waiting game to see what was happening.”

She said the cops refused to give them water as they sat for hours in sweltering 280C heat, and they were not allowed to make any phone calls or seek legal advice.

Cecilia said they spent a day in cells and were then told they could leave the police station – if they agreed to hand over their passports, which they refused to do.

She said: “Five men followed us back to our hotel. We locked ourselves in our room but they banged on our door for 20 minutes. It was really menacing.”

The next morning a new group of policemen arrived and continued to demand their documents.

Cecilia said: “They were rapping on our window and asking for my passport. They were saying it was a crime not to hand it over.

“I almost did, but I’m so glad now that I didn’t because I would have been trapped there.”

Eventually Cecilia agreed to speak to the police at the hotel – but was horrified when they showed her the footage of her arrest, which had been filmed by a bystander.

She said: “One officer said, ‘You are on the local news’. I was in complete shock. I looked on my phone and saw the clip had already reached British websites.

“The experience of the violence came rushing back immediately. I was gobsmacked it had gone so far so quickly.” Cecilia said police had also confiscated Lucas’ bag, which contained possessions and travel money worth £1,000.

She said: “We asked for it back but everything had gone.”

The next day – Cecilia’s birthday – she and Lucas fled their hotel at dawn and boarded the first ferry to