A British woman has pleaded not guilty to falsely claiming she was gang-raped by a group of young Israelis in the Cypriot resort town of Ayia Napa.

The 19-year-old was bailed by a court in Cyprus after 31 days in custody on condition she visited a police station in Nicosia three times a week before her trial, which was set for 2 October.

The student, who says she was forced to revoke the complaint under duress, was represented by a British QC and two of the island’s leading human rights lawyers after the resignation of her original attorney.

In a statement after Tuesday’s hearing, her legal team said pressure had been placed on the Briton to withdraw her claim that 12 Israeli teenagers had raped her in a hotel room in Ayia Napa.

“The teenager’s case is that she has not lied about being raped and that oppression was used by the Cypriot police in order to get her to retract her rape allegations and that the purported retraction statement is unreliable,” her lawyers said. The woman, who was in Cyprus on a working holiday, had been subjected to an “eight-hour ordeal at the police station” without recourse to a lawyer and agreed only to retract her claim at 2.30am, her lawyers alleged.

Justice Abroad, the legal aid group coordinating the woman’s defence efforts, said the team would seek to have the charges dropped, citing what it said was the unreliable evidence supplied by the prosecution.

Justice Abroad argued that the teenager’s confession had been forcibly extracted in violation of the Cypriot constitution and EU human rights law. It said it would “make written submissions to the attorney general of Cyprus to discontinue the case”.

Cypriot police have denied claims of misconduct, saying the tourist changed her story on her own volition.

On Tuesday Michael Polak, a barrister with Justice Abroad, said: “This is a very important case to test the adherence of the Cypriot courts to the rights set out in the constitution, the provisions of the European convention and the directly applicable European Union directives on justice issues.”

The Briton, who cannot be publicly identified and appeared with her face covered as she entered and exited Famagusta district court in Paralimni, near Ayia Napa, faces up to a year in jail if found guilty of the charge of causing public mischief.

The court ordered she surrender her passport.



