TWO MEN from the Nicosia district are being investigated in connection with separate paedophilia cases, after two girls aged four and 12 said they were being sexually abused by male relatives within their immediate family environment.
The first incident came to light when the four-year-old girl’s father contacted police to say his daughter told him that his ex-wife’s brother – the toddler’s uncle – was sexually abusing their child.
In the second case, a 12-year-old girl’s mother reported her boyfriend to police, after the girl confided that he was sexually abusing her.
Both children were yesterday expected to be examined by a pathologist, while statements were to be taken via video link.
According to Politis newspaper, which yesterday cited police sources to report the incidents, after the girls’ statements are taken and compared to those of their parents, immediate arrests are expected to take place and the two suspects will be taken to court for remand until further investigations are carried out.
Cyprus’ judicial system has started getting tougher with convicted paedophiles recently, after a furore over unjustifiably low sentences.
At the beginning of this month, the criminal court in Larnaca imposed the island’s highest-ever punishment for paedophilia on a man convicted of repeatedly raping his two underage daughters over a period of nine years.
The court sentenced the 47-year-old father from a Larnaca village to 20 years in prison after he was found guilty on a record number of charges, including rape, incest, indecent assault and sexual exploitation.
Last year, the Chairman of the House Legal Affairs Committee, DISY’s Ionas Nicolaou, had told the Cyprus Mail that to his knowledge, the highest ever penalty imposed on a convicted paedophile was 10 years – and that was also a severe case involving incest and brutal sexual assault.
A Nicosia Criminal Court judge recently indicated the worrying dimensions the phenomenon was taking, when imposing his sentence on a father convicted of raping his daughter twice: “Cases of rape and other connected sexual crimes are now the rule and no longer the exception, as used to be the case in our country. Nicosia Criminal Court, but also other criminal courts, has to deal with such cases almost on a daily basis now.”
