A British teenager has been found guilty of falsely accusing 12 Israeli men of gang raping her at a Cyprus resort in July.
The woman waited several hours after the alleged incident on July 17 to report it to police. The men were arrested shortly after. The Telegraph reported that two weeks later, the woman was questioned by Cyprus police for eight hours. The outlet reported the woman did not have a lawyer or family member present during this time. During her questioning, the woman admitted to making up the claims and even signed a document retracting her initial accusations and apologizing.
The woman was arrested and the men were soon released. The woman made a statement to authorities that she had agreed to have sex with one of the men and that others filmed it. She told them she made up the gang-rape accusations because she was embarrassed.
The woman’s passport was confiscated and she lost her place at a U.K. university due to the trial proceedings. Her lawyers claimed she was innocent and suffered from trauma due to the alleged incident. The woman claimed in court that she had agreed to have sex with one of the men, referred to only as Sam, but his friends entered the room during the encounter. She said she shouted “no” when they entered.
“I said I am not doing that and told them all to go,” she said, according to The Telegraph. “They left for a few seconds and Sam told me to lie on the bed and he got on his knees and put them on my shoulders.”
She claimed the men held her down and raped her.
“I tried to cross my legs. I was trying to throw my arms about,” she said in court. “I don’t know how many of them raped me. I couldn’t see.”
A forensic pathologist testified in court that he found DNA traces from four of the Israeli men on the woman, but it is unclear where those traces were found. The pathologist said the rape kit examination presented in court did not test the woman’s clothing. DNA, however, can be left on a person’s body in any number of ways that do not include rape. They could have been deposited through contact via the man she agreed to have sex with, for example. She could have been near the men earlier and obtained the DNA traces.
Women’s rights groups naturally claimed the woman was a rape victim who was being silenced. A court determined beyond a reasonable doubt that the woman lied, yet “believe all women” activists insisted she was a victim. The activists have used every cliché in the book to excuse the woman’s inconsistent stories and her admission that she made up the allegations.
An attorney for the falsely accused men has told media outlets that they plan to sue the woman for damages, the New York Post reported. Attorney Nir Yaslovitzh, who represented the Israelis, called for the woman to receive a “harsh sentence” to deter “all those accusers who find it OK to make up false” allegations.
The woman faces a $1,900 fine and up to a year in prison.
Despite her conviction, media outlets are not revealing the woman’s name.