The case of a British tourist arrested for filing a false police report against 12 Israeli teenagers has taken a new twist, as the woman now claims she was forced by Cypriot police to sign her confession.
According to a report Sunday evening by The Sun, the 19-year-old British student who had been vacationing in the Cyprus resort town of Ayia Napa now says her confession had been made to police under duress, adding that she had been denied an attorney during the investigation.
The woman says investigators denied her access to an attorney during her questioning and forced her to withdraw her complaint. She now claims that she was forced to dictate a confession, which she signed only because she was “exhausted” following eight hours at the police station.
Her attorney said the woman’s confession was obtained under oppression given the threats made and that she was not cautioned and was not given access to a lawyer as was her right under the European Convention on Human rights.
In her complaint, the report Sunday revealed, the British teen claimed that she had engaged in consensual relations with one of the 12 Israeli teens several times, but said that on one occasion he became violent.
When she asked him to stop, she claims, he refused, and called over his friends to assault her.
Eventually, after roughly an hour, the woman says, she managed to flee the hotel room.
Initially, the teenager had alleged that 12 Israelis gang raped her at the hotel where she was staying in the popular resort of Ayia Napa on July 17.
The Israeli tourists aged 15 to 18 were arrested shortly after the complaint was filed.
After five of the 12 Israeli teens were proven to have not been present at the time of the alleged rape, including some who had clear alibis placing them elsewhere during the incident, Cyprus authorities freed the five, who returned to Israel last Thursday and Friday.
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