POLICE officers allegedly abused their power and effectively held an uneducated Bulgarian teenager at their mercy so they could extract an incriminating statement from her.
The argument was put forward in court yesterday by the 19-year-old woman’s defence lawyer.
As the lawyer painted a picture of an ignorant girl who was duped into remaining in custody until she gave investigators what they needed to charge her, police tried to convince the Nicosia district court that the teen had remained in custody for almost 10 hours without food or water at her own volition.
Taking the stand a female CID officer said the teen, who is a suspect in a sham marriage case, had been brought in for questioning and had been told she was free to go at any point as she was not under arrest.
The same officer said the 19-year-old was only arrested after it became clear during her statement that she had committed an offence.
The CID officer’s testimony was part of an ongoing trial into a sham marriage between the 19-year-old and a 33-year-old Bangladeshi man.
A 38-year-old Nicosia lawyer is also in the dock after she was charged with arranging the marriage for a €6,000 fee.
The officer told the court she had taken the teen’s statement through a Bulgarian interpreter and that the former had signed it. At no point had the 19-year-old indicated she did not understand what was going on, she said.
The officer also denied claims by the Bulgarian that she had complained of feeling unwell and said on the contrary the teen was in good psychological shape.
“We come into contact with people daily and can understand if they are okay or not and she never complained,” she said.
The officer also denied she had seen the young woman taking painkillers three times for a niggling headache.
The investigator said the teen had been told from the beginning that she was free to go.
“What girl is told she is free to go and instead stays at the CID offices for 10 hours,” the lawyer wondered.
The Bulgarian teen, who showed up in court in silver stilettos, a skinny pair of jeans and a fitted black sleeveless v-neck, at one point put her head back and opened her mouth into a huge yawn. She also rolled her eyes, and a couple of times conferred with her lawyer when she appeared to dispute what the officer was telling the court.
The Bangladeshi suspect stood quietly while two interpreters were used to translate the court proceedings from Greek to English to Bangla. The 33-year-old often appeared lost in his thoughts.
As the hearing dragged on the officer also denied making a promise that in exchange for the 19-year-old’s statement she would be allowed to go without charge and that she could even call a taxi to collect her.
“You told her if she doesn’t co-operate she will go to jail for a long time,” the defence said. The officer denied the assertion.
The defendant belonged to the Roma, a minority group in Bulgaria, who spoke a different language and her level of Bulgarian was limited to spoken knowledge, the defence added. She said the girl, who had not completed primary school, had signed the statement in grammatically incorrect Bulgarian and that the officer had obviously not been in a position to know this due to her lack of knowledge of the language. She also said her client had not been in a position to understand the legal terms used in the interpretation.
“During her statement she never expressed she couldn’t understand what was being said,” the officer reiterated.
The defence said the teen had been kept under conditions without food or drink as a means to pressure her into saying what investigators what to hear. The defence said police already knew the woman was a suspect when she was brought to the CID and that the time she was in custody was used to push her into making a statement.
The officer said this was untrue and that the girl had been offered food and drink repeatedly and that all she had asked for was coffee and cigarettes which she duly got.
“She said she wanted to stay and wanted to give a statement,” the officer said.
The 19-year-old, who was taken to the CID offices at 11am in February as part of the investigation, was charged after incriminating herself in her statement.
The trial continues next Thursday.
