This archive report was first published on 7 January 2020.
Published on January 7, 2020, a British woman who accused a dozen Israelis of raping her in a Cyprus resort town has been given a four-month suspended sentence, allowing her to avoid prison time.
The woman, who was 19 when she made the accusation in July 2019, had accused the Israelis, who were ages 15 to 18, of raping her in a hotel room in Ayia Napa, in southeastern Cyprus.
However, she later retracted her statement, and the police arrested the young men but later released them after the woman's retraction.
The woman's case has sparked outrage among rights groups in her home country and in Cyprus, with many condemning the handling of her case and the guilty verdict.
British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab expressed his concerns over her treatment, stating that she had gone through a 'terrible ordeal.'
The woman's legal team argued that she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and that the police had pressured her to retract the accusations against the Israelis.
Despite the controversy surrounding her case, the woman will now be allowed to return to Britain after being given a suspended sentence.
