(Reuters) -Cypriot authorities were guilty of bias and victim-blaming in failing to investigate a British teenager’s gang-rape allegation against Israeli tourists in 2019, the European Court of Human Rights found on Thursday.
The woman, then 18 and identified as “X”, reported being raped by Israeli youths in July 2019 in the resort of Ayia Napa.
However, after hours of police interrogation without legal representation, she retracted her statement – which she later said she had done under duress. She was charged with “public mischief” and handed a suspended jail sentence.
The ECtHR said Cypriot authorities had taken a selective and inconsistent approach.
“The applicant’s credibility appears to have been assessed through prejudicial gender stereotypes and victim-blaming attitudes,” it said, agreeing with “X” that Cyprus had breached its legal obligation to effectively investigate and prosecute her allegations.
Lewis Power, one of her lawyers, said: “This young girl’s basic human rights were stripped from her and she was let down by a flawed and archaic investigative system.”
After her retraction, the Israeli youths were released from detention and returned home without facing further legal action. Some said they had had consensual sex with “X” but all denied rape.
The ECtHR found that investigators had accepted the claims of consent too readily and ended inquiries prematurely.
Cyprus’s Supreme Court overturned the woman’s conviction in January 2022, upholding her assertion that she had retracted her allegation under pressure.
Despite that ruling, the attorney-general declined to reopen an investigation into her original complaint.
The advocacy group Justice Abroad said it now expected the attorney-general to reconsider.
“A proper framework for the investigation and prosecution of sexual offences needs to be developed urgently in Cyprus,” its director Michael Polak said.
The attorney-general’s office said it could not comment before studying the ruling.
(Writing by Michele Kambas; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
