Update 29 August 2019: British Teen Released on Bail and Faces October Trial in Cyprus After Reporting Group Rape

JUSTICE ABROAD

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Update Following Release on Bail 29 August 2019

British Teen Released on Bail and Faces October Trial in Cyprus After Reporting Group Rape

Justice Abroad is assisting the British teenager and her family in this matter.  An application for bail was successfully made for the teenager by Justice Abroad’s legal team at the hearing at Famagusta District Court on 27 August 2019. At this hearing the teenager was represented by an expert legal team assembled by Justice Abroad comprising of Lewis Power QC, a top barrister from the English Bar of the senior rank of Queen’s Counsel, Cypriot lawyer Nicoletta Charalambidou, an experienced human rights advocate, and Ritsa Pekri, a criminal law expert.

The teenager has been released on bail in the past hour with the assistance of numerous family and friends who helped secure the required security deposit.

Justice Abroad’s Michael Polak commented that ‘We are very please that our legal team has managed to secure bail for the teenager. She has spent a significant period in custody after being taken to the Police Station by the Cypriot Police alone and without the assistance of a lawyer. We hope that with the proper preparation that this case requires we will be able to secure justice for her.’

The family continues to raise funds for legal preparation and representation costs and the proper preparation for trial will include the instruction of experts and translators. The Go Fund Me page www.gofundme.com/f/Help-Teen-Victim-Get-Justice-In-Cyprus  has received half of the estimated costs so far and the family wishes to thank all those from the United Kingdom, Israel, and the rest of the world who have contributed to the fundraising campaign at what is a difficult and unexpected time for them and in what they consider to be a very important fight for the teenager’s rights and her future.

The teenager is facing trial beginning on 2 October 2019 in Cyprus after reporting a gang rape in the town of Ayia Napa in the Republic of Cyprus. At the last hearing on 27 August 2019 the teenager entered a not guilty plea and the matter will move towards trial. The teenager’s case is that she has not lied about being raped and that oppression was used by the Cypriot Police in order to get her to retract her rape allegations and that the purported retraction statement is unreliable. Further details of the teenager’s case as to the pressure placed upon her to retract her allegation in her 8 hour ordeal at the Police Station without a lawyer and as to how the teenager and her family assert that her rights under the European Convention, Cypriot Constitutional Law, and European Union provisions can be found at  https://www.justiceabroad.co.uk/en/news/update

The admissibility of retraction statement will be challenge in a voire dire, ‘trial within a trial’, which will take place at the start of the trial. This will involve the Prosecution having to prove that the retraction statement was not obtained through oppression nor circumstances which were likely to have made it unreliable to the criminal standard, beyond reasonable doubt. If they are unable to do this, that evidence will be excluded from the trial. In the trial itself the burden will fall upon the Prosecution to prove that the teenager lied about being raped, again to the standard of beyond reasonable doubt.

The teenager’s defence team will be submitting to the Court that the evidence does not show this and to the contrary that the evidence, when considered alongside the behaviour of the Israeli youths both in Cyprus and upon their return to Israel at Ben Gurion Airport, tends to show the opposite.

The teenager’s legal team intend to make written submissions to the Attorney General of Cyprus to discontinue this case against the teenager after considering the facts as set out above before the matter comes to trial.

On 27 August 2019 outside Famagusta County Court, Justice Abroad’s Michael Polak stated the following ‘this remains a very important case to test the adherence of the Cypriot courts to the rights set out in the Constitution, the provisions in the European Convention, and the directly applicable European Union directives on justice issues. It is important that the Cypriot Attorney General gives strong considerations to discontinuing this matter against the teenager who is a rape complainant and has spent a significant period in prison on remand.’

Justice Abroad can be contacted on contact@justiceabroad.co.uk about the above matter or other similar situations and the media are asked to give the teenager privacy at this difficult time and not to contact the lawyers individually as this will reduced the time they have to attend to this important matter and other similar cases in which they are acting.

 

Notes to Editors

Justice Abroad, www.justiceabroad.co.uk  has been set up to help those trying to find their way through foreign justice systems with all the associated hurdles that presents. To help such families with these dilemmas and many more, three experts, Michael Polak, a barrister with an international practice focussed on the assistance of foreign nationals in trouble around the world, David Swindle ,  a former Detective Superintendent who has worked on hundreds of murders and complex high profile investigations in the UK and abroad during his 34 years in the police, and David Walters MVO, a former British Diplomat with over thirty years’ experience having served in over a dozen countries around the world, have pooled their extensive experience.  Justice Abroad is endeavouring to ensure that their client experiences a fair, transparent, and unbiased trial process in Cyprus.

Lewis Power QC is a barrister who was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1990 and achieved the senior rank of Queen’s Counsel (QC) in 2011. He has a strong reputation for fighting difficult cases at trial and advising and advocating in matters with international and cross-jurisdictional elements.

Nicoletta Charalambidou is human rights lawyer with an expertise on European Union law and with a particular interest in victims and suspects rights in criminal procedures and discrimination in the administration of justice. She is also a member to the Legal Experts Advisory Panel of Fair Trials. 

Ritsa Pekri is a civil and criminal law lawyer working with Nicoletta Charalambidou LLC with strong experience in criminal cases and those matters involving human rights related issues.

Justice Abroad is also cooperating with KISA - Action for Equality, Support, Antiracism which is a national NGO active in the field of antidiscrimination and antiracism, including discrimination in the administration of justice and a human rights violations watchdog working in the field of victim and suspects rights under EU law.

 

 
 
Michael Polak