Police searching for three other suspects in Cyprus gang rape case
Meanwhile, Channel 13 reported that one of the videos of the scene that was filmed by the boys had been leaked leaked to the internet.
By ALON HOCHMONIsraeli tourists, arrested over the alleged rape of a British tourist in the resort town of Ayia Napa, arrive to appear before a magistrate for a remand hearing in the Famagusta courthouse in Paralimni, Cyprus(photo credit: REUTERS/YIANNIS KOURTOGLOU)
The Cyprus court on Friday extended the arrest of seven of the 12 suspects arrested on suspicion of gang raping a 19-year-old British tourist in the Napa hotel. A day earlier, the Cyprus police released five of the suspects to their home in Israel after being convinced that they had no connection to the affair or to sexual contact with the complainant.In the court, another drama was exposed for the first time related to the DNA samples collected from the scene. Police representatives noted that upon receipt of the police laboratory's findings, it emerged that three of the samples belonged to none of the detainees, and it is not inconceivable that there were others involved in the affair who the police had not apprehended.The investigators searched for the three other suspects, assumed to be Israelis, who managed to escape before the arrest, demanding that the hotel show them the guest list. The police offered immunity to those who provide information.Meanwhile, Channel 13 reported that one of the videos of the scene that was filmed by the boys had been leaked leaked to the internet.Attorney Nir Yaslowitz welcomed the Cypriot police's request for a list of guests from the hotel, saying: "The findings of the DNA test, which indicate that there were three sets of DNA results that did not belong to any of the boys, prove that the detainees in Cyprus did not commit any crime and any sexual relations that did occur were consensual."The court also revealed that three of the suspects had had sexual contact with the British girl, two of them on the same night around which the complaint was filed, according to the version of the suspects. According to the suspects'testimony, they had sex with her that night, while another suspect allegedly had oral sex with her.Meanwhile, some of the five boys who had been released landed in Israel at 6 am, after it became clear that the DNA samples did not connect them to the complainant, whom the Israelis knew at the club where she worked."It was a nightmare, I will never go back to Cyprus," said one of the released suspects. "I just want to get home."Another suspect added, "I just want to be with my family and my friends. Because of the sefie that my girlfriend took that night, I was saved because it was evidence that I was with her and not with the British girl.""In the middle of the night, the policemen broke the door of our room and came in and pulled me out of bed," added another young man. "All this, because one of the suspects brought them to our room. I had no contact with the young woman, I had no acquaintance with her and I had not seen her before."
That five of the suspects were released after the complainant claimed that she had slept with all 12 suspects points to cracks in her testimony. The detainees' lawyers intend to adopt a new strategy, according to which the young woman decided to file a complaint against all the suspects after she had consensual sex with two of the young men.
