Jim B wrote: ↑Mon Jan 06, 2020 9:11 am
There's a very good article in the Sunday Mail in the column "Tales From The Coffeeshop" which covers the events.
Here's the article in full.
Tales from the Coffeeshop: A PR disaster of nuclear proportions
WHO WOULD have thought that our authorities’ monumental bungling of a rape claim case would have turned into a international PR disaster of nuclear proportions for poor old Kyproulla, exposing our dysfunctional judicial system, our antiquated police procedures and our contempt for the weak while straining relations with Britain and putting the tourist year at risk?
These were just some of the consequences of the heavy-handed way the case of the teenage British girl, accused of lying about being gang-raped by 12 young Israelis, was handled by the police, the attorney-general’s office and the district court judge. Last Monday, that judge, Michalis Papathanasiou, issued his ‘guilty’ verdict in a 72-page decision, in which he said the prosecution proved its case “beyond reasonable doubt”.
In his decision, the judge said the court had “the confession of guilt by the defendant, which is voluntary and lawful and was in line with testimony that was admissible”. When the defendant “was giving statements to the police in relation to the alleged rape, she knew that in reality no rape had taken place and the statements she gave were false.”
I am no lawyer, so I have no legal arguments to offer, but what I can’t get my head round is why the police needed more than seven hours to secure the “confession of guilt” of the teenager if it were given by her own volition? And could the panic attacks she suffered and bursting into tears during the voluntary confession – documented by the court – have rendered her confession unreliable, the product of emotional instability?
Considering this was just a messed-up kid, being questioned by cops, without a lawyer to advise her, it is difficult to understand how the judge viewed the confession as totally reliable.
WORSE STILL was the insensitive, bordering on cruel, treatment of the teenager. First, she was remanded in custody, held in the central prisons for more than four weeks, for what was a minor offence, that carried a maximum penalty of one year in prison and/or €1700 fine.
She did not pose a threat to the public. There was no danger of her influencing witnesses and tampering with evidence, yet a judge saw it fit to keep her behind bars for a month. And when she was finally released on bail, her passport was held by the police so she would not flee the country and avoid punishment for her heinous crime.
Instead, she was kept on the island for five months unable to attend university, where she was due to start in September, so that she could be tried on the charges of “public mischief”. This is not to mention the PTSD she was suffering and her need of treatment. The harshness of the attorney-general and courts in insisting on keeping her in Cyprus until the trial was completed was beyond belief given the triviality of the offence.
Why was she not allowed to go home and return for the trial? And if she failed to return, she could have been tried in absentia and that would have been the end of the story. The harsh treatment of the teenager was how you would expect a woman to be treated in Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan but not in an EU member-state.
THE REPORTER of the Daily Mail, Inderdeep Bains, who covered the proceedings from start to finish, was far from flattering about Papathanasiou, whom he described as “bullish” in an article published on New Year’s Eve. The judge, it appears, made sure that gross insensitivity shown towards the teenager by our authorities was also evident in his court room.
Bains wrote: “I lost count of the times I was left deeply disturbed by district judge Michalis Papathanasiou’s frequent aggressive outbursts. I have never seen a judge act so unprofessionally and with such disdain for a defendant. Typically, he would lose his temper, scowl and shout in Greek: ‘show respect, face the front and you must respect this court.’ The trigger for his outbursts could have been something as trivial as the woman gesturing to her lawyer or gazing out of the window.”
Bains also quoted Dr Marios Madsakis as saying the judge “was shouting, he was aggressive”. The crazy doctor, who was working for the defence, also told the Daily Mail: “It was shameful, judges like this should go home.”
If there was one criticism I would make against Cypriot judges, having been in court rooms in all districts except Paphos, it is that they are usually very laidback and accommodating, which makes Papathanasiou’s aggressiveness very surprising indeed.
JUDGE Papathanasiou, while a practising lawyer in 2010, represented the suspected paymaster of a Russian spy ring operating in the US for whom the FBI had issued an international arrest warrant. Canadian national Christopher Metsos was arrested at Larnaca airport by the Cyprus police and taken to court, which to everyones astonishment was granted bail.
Two days later pictures of Metsos opening champagne bottles in Moscow surfaced. Papathanasiou had nothing to do with this, but how our courts could grant bail to a man wanted in the US for spying, while issuing a remand order against a teenager facing a public mischief charge, is one of the great legal mysteries of our time.
IF CYPRIOT hoteliers have followed the British media’s onslaught about the verdict in the last week, they will not be looking forward to the happy new year we wished them. There has been a barrage of critical reports about the police, the courts, the justice system and the lack of respect for human rights, ever since the issuing of the verdict last Monday.
The case has made it on BBC and ITV television news on consecutive nights, on BBC radio and into all the main newspapers including The Times, The Guardian and The Telegraph. And to cap it all there has been an online campaign #boycott Cyprus urging people not to holiday on our beautiful island, because it is not safe for female tourists. A Guardian columnist, said “the message could hardly be starker: if you are attacked do not expect the authorities to help you.”
The timing of the verdict was also unfortunate, as January is the time many Brits book their summer holidays and with all this negative publicity they could decide not to come to the sunshine isle. Sentencing, scheduled for Tuesday, could prolong the unflattering reports, even though we cannot rule out Famagusta hoteliers staging a protest outside Famagusta district court demanding a lenient sentence for the teenager.
MORE damaging than the ultra-negative media coverage and the boycott campaign was the stand of the British Foreign Office which rarely intervenes in court cases involving Brits abroad.
In this case, however, a Foreign Office spokesman described events as “deeply distressing” and said the British government was “seriously concerned” about the teenager’s right to a fair trial. In diplomatic language it was saying the woman’s right to a fair trial had not been respected.
This highly unusual stance by the Foreign Office could have more influence on the holiday decisions of Brits than the bad press. Even though we Greek Cypriots are accustomed to being stabbed in the back by the duplicitous, hostile Foreign Office on the Cyprob, we were not too bothered because it did not affect our pockets.
This intervention though could have economic repercussions, which was why our government has adopted a rather apologetic stance, claiming that it could not interfere in the work of the judiciary.
If this case does mess up our 2020 tourist season and reduces revenue from our main tourist market, we would have paid a very high price in keeping our strategic ally and gas partner Israel happy. Freeing the Israeli men, whose nastiness to the girl was quite shocking, and putting them on a flight home, as soon as the cops got the British girl to ‘voluntarily’ retract her rape allegations, was not the happy ending our authorities had hoped for.
It can console itself that at least our friend and ally, Israel, had no complaints.
Sorry about sticking to a single issue, but it has been a slow week. Normal service resumes next Sunday.
https://cyprus-mail.com/2020/01/05/tale ... oportions/
(Guess I got out of bed on the wrong side this morning!)
