Man found guilty of raping 20-year-old British woman

Larnaca criminal court on Thursday found guilty a 32-year-old man for the rape of a 20-year-old British woman in Ayia Napa last summer.

Sentencing will be carried out on May 25.

The incident took place in the early morning hours of June 26, 2019.

The woman was walking back to her apartment after finishing her shift at a bar. On arriving there, the man – whom she had briefly encountered a little earlier – suddenly appeared behind her.

He asked for her help in ostensibly procuring some laughing gas. The woman agreed to get in the man’s car.

Eventually the man drove all the way to the village of Sotira. They stopped, got out of the car, and the man offered her a marijuana cigarette.

After taking a couple of puffs, the woman, growingly increased anxious, asked the man to take her back home.

At that point, the court said, the man grabbed her and pushed her violently against a railing. She began to cry and insisted the man take her home.

The man then proceeded to rape her.

The court accepted the victim’s testimony as genuine. Under police questioning, the then-suspect admitted to having had sexual intercourse with the woman, but said it was consensual.

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.