Lawyers for the British teenager found guilty of lying about being gang-raped in Cyprus have launched an appeal to the country's Supreme Court to overturn the conviction.
The woman, now 21, was given a four-month suspended sentenced for allegedly making up claims that she was abused up to a dozen Israelis during a vacation in Cyprus in 2019.
A legal team argued at a hearing today that the lower court shouldn't have admitted the then 19-year-old's written retraction as evidence because investigators obtained it after she sat in a police station for seven hours without a lawyer or an interpreter.
Lawyers for the British teenager (pictured) found guilty of lying about being gang-raped in Cyprus have launched an appeal to the country's Supreme Court to overturn the conviction
A group of around 30 activists from the Network Fighting Violence Against Women held banners and chanted slogans outside court today
The team headed by British lawyer Lewis Power said that the woman - whose identity hasn't been formally released - was suffering from a stress disorder and had been pressured into making an 'unreliable' retraction.
The team said the 'discourteous' lower court judge failed to provide the woman with a 'fair hearing,' because he didn't give defence lawyers the chance to put forward evidence supporting the woman's claims.
Lewis said in a written statement that the legal team believes that 'ultimately justice will be achieved' so that the woman 'can free herself from the shackles of an unjust conviction which has tarnished her young life.'
Lead prosecutor Adamos Demosthenous told The Associated Press that the state would 'support the correctness of the original ruling' and stands by it.
A group of around 30 activists from the Network Fighting Violence Against Women held banners and chanted slogans in support of the woman, including 'national interests absolve rapists, police and judges are also guilty' and 'rapists are to blame for rape, not short blouses and miniskirts.'
The team headed by British lawyer Lewis Power (pictured) said that the woman - whose identity hasn't been formally released - was suffering from a stress disorder
The woman said she was attacked by up to 12 Israeli tourists pictured entering the Famagusta District Court in Paralimni, Cyprus, 26 July 2019
The woman did not attend the two-hour hearing, conducted in Greek in front of a panel of three judges, including the English-born president of the Supreme Court, Persefoni Panayi.
Demosthenous, representing the Cyprus attorney general, said the appeal should not be heard because the woman had criticised the trial judge in an ITV documentary, but the court ruled against the submission and heard the arguments.
Judge Michalis Papathanasiou said in his original ruling that he would give the woman a 'second chance' and not send her to jail, because she admitted through her lawyers during mitigation that she made a mistake in making the false rape claim.
Papathanasiou said the defendant didn't tell the truth and tried to deceive the court with 'evasive' statements in her testimony.
He said the woman had admitted to investigators that she made up the claims because she was
