The five men, aged between 19 and 20, were arrested after a 20-year-old British tourist told police she was gang-raped on Sept. 3 in a hotel room at the seaside resort.
On Sept. 4, the five were remanded for eight days, and on Tuesday at Paralimni district court they were ordered to remain in custody for six more days, police said.They face possible charges of rape, sexual coercion, forced sexual intercourse, sexual harassment, abduction and indecent assault against a woman.
The state-funded Cyprus News Agency said the arrests came after police secured witness testimony to support the allegation.Only three suspects appeared in court Tuesday because two are in quarantine after contracting COVID-19, CNA said.
According to the Cypriot Philenews website, forensic examiners found injuries and bruises on the woman.Israeli media reported she told police she struck up a conversation with one suspect by the hotel pool and that he pulled her by the arm to the room and then tried to remove her swimsuit.
According to Israel’s Walla website, the woman said she resisted, but two more men appeared and raped her.It said the woman picked out the suspects from a police lineup.
The incident is reminiscent of a gang rape case in Ayia Napa four years ago when 12 Israelis were arrested for attacking a teenage British girl.They were released after she retracted her statement but said police pressured her into doing so.The 19-year-old was convicted in 2020 for causing public mischief and given a four-month suspended jail term.
In 2022, the Supreme Court quashed her conviction on appeal after defense lawyers argued there had been a miscarriage of justice.Police later said they would examine whether mistakes had been made in the investigation.
UK-based Justice Abroad, which successfully appealed the conviction, has taken on the new case after the woman’s family requested their help.
Official tourism figures for July show Israelis were the second largest group of visitors to Cyprus at 10.2 percent, or more than 46,400 arrivals, behind Britain at 34.8 percent.
Other Version:A British tourist, who claimed she was raped by a group of five Israeli men on Cyprus's Ayia Napa island, fabricated the story to get "insurance money," the father of one of the suspects claimed on Wednesday in an interview with Ynet.
"There is no rape here, they didn't drag her out of the pool and there was nothing. You see her going up to the room with one of the guys. We are talking about five guys who went on vacation before starting university studies. There are cameras in the hotel that record the girl hugging only one of them and going up to the room with him.
At the police station, I met detainees from all over Europe who are alleged to have committed criminal acts against British people. I would be happy if we saw intervention from the Israeli embassy here or from the Foreign Ministry. I hope it will be okay."
A 20-year-old British tourist told Cypriot police the suspects “forcefully dragged her” to a room in the hotel they were staying in where they allegedly sexually assaulted her. A source familiar with the investigation told the British Daily Mail that her version will be checked using the hotel's security camera footage.
Cypriot news site Philenews quoted local police sources as saying that the young woman arrived with her friends at a pool party held at a different hotel from the one where she was staying. "At a certain point, they approached me and started flirting with me," she testified during the investigation.
The five suspects, all aged 19 and 20 from the northern town of Majd al-Krum, met the tourist at the pool party at the Fedrania Gardens Hotel. Subsequently, at least two of them went up to the room with her - and there, according to her, sexually assaulted her.
The alleged victim promptly reported the incident to the hotel's security staff. Police arrived on the scene, and the young woman gave a detailed statement.
The Israeli suspects remain in custody and have claimed during their investigation that the sexual encounter was consensual. Although the complaint seems to target only two of them, all were arrested as a precaution, drawing from past experiences, to prevent the suspects from fleeing.
The five were apprehended by Cypriot police Sunday during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the island nation and four years after another alleged rape case of a British tourist by a group of Israelis. All suspects were released and the charges against them were dropped after the supposed victim walked back on her account.
