Man sentenced to six years for 2017 rape in Ayia Napa

The Famagusta criminal court on Tuesday sentenced a 36-year-old man, a resident of the Famagusta district, to six years in prison after he was found guilty of raping an 18-year-old British woman on July 4, 2017.

It was heard in court the woman, who was 18 at the time, got into the man’s car to be taken to her hotel but he never took her there.

According to her testimony, the night before the rape she was at a party at Makronisos beach with friends.

At some point, she said, she lost her friends and was forced to return to the hotel where she was staying by bus.

The bus stopped a short distance from her accommodation and she was walking towards the hotel from the bus stop when a man stopped his car and offered to take her to her destination.

Instead, he took her to the new Ayia Napa cemetery, where he parked.

She reported he then raped her, pushed her to the ground, got into his car and left.

Because it was dark, she was not able to recognise her rapist, she told the court.

However, scientific evidence, specifically genetic material, linked him to the crime.

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