Teenager held over attempted rape

A TEENAGER has been arrested accused of attempting to rape an American student.

At 9.10pm on Saturday evening, the 23-year-old woman was walking on the corner of Gladstone and Byron streets in Nicosia when she was approached by a stranger.

The man pulled a gun from his back pocket at which point the woman told him to take her bag, containing a laptop and leave her alone.

Ignoring her plea, he grabbed her by the hand and forced her into a car, driving her to a nearby apartment block basement with the intention of sexually assaulting her.
When she started screaming and tried to push her attacker away, he struck her in the face with the gun.

In the ensuing struggle, the woman managed to escape from his grasp and ran away to a nearby friend’s home, from where she immediately called the police.

Upon arriving at the basement to investigate at 10.10pm, officers found a young man matching the description given by the woman, with a woman’s bag in his possession.
He was driven to a police station, where it was discovered that he is a 16-year-old from the village of Geri, in Nicosia.

Under questioning, he confessed to what had happened, but said the gun was a replica and that he had thrown it away.

The woman was taken to Nicosia General Hospital, where she was diagnosed with a fractured nose.

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.