Protest march seeks justice for teen in Cyprus gang-rape case
CAMPAIGNERS for a British woman facing prison for claiming she had been gang-raped are today to march on the Cypriot High Commission.
The group of women are protesting in solidarity with the 19-year-old outside the diplomatic mission in St James’s Square, London.
They will also pass Downing Street and the Foreign Office before heading to Parliament Square for a rally.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said that the woman’s sentencing tomorrow was “firmly on my radar”.
Mr Raab said: “I have conveyed our concerns about her treatment and the case to my Cypriot opposite number.
“I did that on Friday, and I have also spoken to the young lady’s mother to see what more support we can provide to her. So we also need to be careful that we don’t do anything which aggravates the situation between now [and] the date of sentencing, which is on Tuesday.
“But the concerns that we have and that I have, have been squarely and firmly and categorically registered with the Cypriot authorities.”
He has repeatedly urged Cyprus to “do the right thing” following the alleged incident in Ayia Napa.
Mr Raab has already raised fears that the case could be a miscarriage of justice. Yesterday he added that “there are clear questions around the due process, the fair trial, safeguards that have applied in this case”.
He said the “first priority” is to see the teenager released, adding: “So that’s what we’re doing and we obviously need to handle this case very sensitively to make sure we don’t do anything counter-productive.”
The teenager was convicted after retracting a claim that she was raped by up to 12 young Israeli men in a hotel room on July 17.
But the young woman later claimed she was pressured by police to change her statement, during hours of questioning without a lawyer present.
After signing the retraction, Cypriot detectives decided to charge her for making a false claim and then released the alleged attackers, aged from 15 to 20. The 12 returned to Israel where they were filmed celebrating with some chanting: “The Brit is a whore.”
The teenager could face up to a year in jail along with a £1,500 fine.
A court pathologist was yesterday reported as saying that photgraphs showing 35 bruises on the woman’s legs, arms and buttocks left “no doubt” she had been gang-raped.
During the trial the judge claimed the injuries were jellyfish stings.