Man jailed for 2009 rape of 17-year-old girl (updated)

The Limassol criminal court on Monday sentenced a 42-year-old man to 12 years in jail after finding him guilty of raping a 17-year-old girl in 2009.

The Romanian national had been detained in Romania in October last year on an international arrest warrant issued in relation with the offence committed in Limassol in 2009.

The warrant had been issued after his genetic material matched samples collected from the victim.

Police collected genetic material at the time but it was not enough to extract a DNA profile with the equipment at their disposal.

The samples were eventually matched to the suspect through an Interpol database.

The 42-year-old did three months in prison in Cyprus in July 2011 for burglary and theft. He was then deported.

The 17-year-old reported to police that she had been assaulted and raped while walking on the street at 11.30pm on May 20, 2009.

The girl said she was on Ayias Irinis Street when she was assaulted by an unknown man who grabbed her by the throat and led her to an adjacent car park where he raped her.

The assailant left the scene on foot.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.