Five arrested after British woman ‘gang-raped in Cyprus hotel room’

Last year a British woman won her appeal to overturn a conviction for ‘lying’ about being gang-raped by 12 tourists

Protesters hold a banner in support of a British woman who appealed her conviction for making false claims that she was gang raped at a resort on the island in 2019 (AP)

A British tourist has said she was raped by five men in her hotel room while on holiday in Cyprus.

The 20-year-old said told Cypriot police she was attacked by five men in her hotel in the city of Famagusta.

Cypriot police have since arrested five men from Israel.

A spokesman at the island’s police headquarters in Nicosia said on Monday: “The five were detained overnight in a cell following the charges. They will appear today before Famagusta’s district court. We have not released their ages but can confirm that they are all young.”

The news comes after last year a British woman won her appeal to overturn a conviction for ‘lying’ about being gang-raped by 12 tourists when she was 18 in Cyprus,

On Friday Cyprus police arrested 20 people after a march against migrants and refugees on the island’s second-largest city, Limassol, turned violent with mobs vandalising property.

Five people were injured during the unrest on Friday evening after about 500 people took to the streets for the march, the police said.

Rubbish bins were set alight and some shops were vandalised, police said. Witnesses quoted by Cypriot media outlets said some foreigners were attacked during the march.

Asian delivery drivers were assaulted and storefronts belonging to migrants were smashed as the violence continued until the early hours of Sunday, according to Reuters news agency.

Police used water cannon to disperse the protesters, some of them hooded and holding a banner that read “Refugees not welcome”.

Overnight Saturday to Sunday, three people from southeast Asia were attacked and robbed, state media said.

Among the victims were a group of visitors from Kuwait, according to social media accounts of witnesses.

Senior diplomat Kyriakos Kouros said a protest was filed by an ambassador of an unnamed Arab state on Saturday after tourists were targeted.

“They cut short their visit. I doubt they will ever return,” Kouros, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, wrote on the social media platform X on Sunday, posting a picture of the departure of a group at an airport. One member of the group was in a wheelchair.

“It is the first time I have felt so embarrassed about such an incident in our country,” he wrote. “This isn’t the Cyprus I was born, raised, had a family and am getting old in,” he said.