British PM welcomes Cyprus court’s release of woman in rape-claim case

Britain’s prime minister welcomed a Cyprus court’s decision to issue a suspended sentence to a British teenager convicted of faking a gang-rape allegation against a group of Israeli tourists.

The woman, who has not been named, was convicted by a Cypriot court last week of lying about being attacked by 12 young Israeli men at a hotel in the holiday resort of Ayia Napa in July.

Last week, in an interview with British media, she asked UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to intervene and bring her home.

“I am 19 and all I want to do is clear my name and come home to my family,” she was quoted as saying by the daily. “Time is running out for me. Please, please help.”

On Tuesday, a day after she received a four-month suspended sentence allowing her to leave Cyprus, a spokesman for Johnson welcomed the court’s decision.

The spokesman said London would work with Cyprus and other countries to ensure that such a case could not happen again, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

She had faced up to a year in prison and a fine of about 1,700 euros ($1,900).

The woman’s conviction was based on several changes to her version of the events in July that led prosecutors — who had already arrested the Israeli men and were preparing indictments based on her testimony — to release the Israelis and arrest her instead on charges of “public mischief” for filing a false rape report.

Throughout the case, she has claimed police had pressured her into withdrawing her original complaint.

Britain’s Foreign Office has said it was “seriously concerned” about whether she received a fair trial, and the case has been taken up by rape survivors and rights groups.

A protest by dozens of British activists marched from the Cyprus high commission in London to Parliament on Monday.

Ahead of the Monday sentencing, several dozen Israeli feminist activists also boarded a plane to Cyprus and stood outside the courthouse in support of the woman’s claims.

Her mother told The Sun her daughter was convicted by a “kangaroo court.”

Last week, a linguist at the University of Manchester said it was “highly unlikely” the woman wrote the confession retracting the rape allegation, saying it was more likely Cypriot police dictated to her what to write.

According to the Daily Mail, the confession contained sentences such as “the report I did… was not the truth” and “I discovered them recording me doing sexual intercourse,” which Andrea Nini said was “very compelling linguistic evidence” the retraction was dictated by a non-native English speaker.

“Of the two hypotheses; that it was composed by the defendant or that it was dictated by a local police officer, my conclusion from the linguistic evidence is the latter,” he said.

Nini, who testified at the trial, said it was “very surprising” the Cypriot judge did not accept his argument.

The accused Israelis, aged 15 to 18, were initially arrested in the case but later released without charge.

The Israelis have not denied they had sexual relations with the woman, but have claimed it was consensual.

One of the Israelis is the son of a senior aide to Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion.

The unidentified official said in July that while he believed in his son’s innocence vis-a-vis the rape allegation, there was nevertheless “something morally wrong on the part of the boys” in their treatment of the woman.

“Someone should have stopped this,” he said.