The Famagusta Permanent Criminal Court on Friday, March 13, sentenced a 51-year-old man to 13 years in prison after finding him guilty of a series of serious sexual offences against a 26-year-old foreign woman in Ayia Napa and Paralimni.
The offences were committed between July and September 2023. The sentencing hearing was held behind closed doors.
The court had earlier found the 51-year-old guilty on 15 of the 16 charges he faced, including eight counts of rape and other related offences such as sexual abuse by indecent assault, threats and stalking.
In passing sentence, the court stressed the seriousness of the offences and the systematic nature of the defendant’s conduct, noting that case law places sentences for cases involving multiple rapes at the higher end of the sentencing scale.
The court also examined Cypriot and English case law on similar offences, where prison terms of nine to 10 years have been considered appropriate even in single rape cases.
In this case, the court took into account that the offences did not involve a single incident but multiple acts on different occasions, which increased the gravity of the case.
The court also considered the defendant’s criminal record, which included previous convictions for other offences, though not of a sexual nature.
After a lengthy court process, the Criminal Court imposed concurrent prison terms on the 51-year-old, with the highest sentence set at 13 years for the rape charges.