Assistant Attorney General Savvas Angelides rejected calls for his resignation following a European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling that found Cyprus violated a rape victim’s rights, describing the demands as “a direct threat to justice” during a press conference today.
The ECHR awarded €35,470 compensation to complainant N.T., a Cypriot woman born in 1992, after ruling that Cyprus breached articles 3, 8 and 14 of the Convention on Human Rights. The court found the Law Office demonstrated “sexist victim-blaming” and “prejudicial gender stereotypes” when discontinuing prosecution of a politician accused of rape.
Political parties have demanded Angelides step down from the Law Office following the ruling, which criticised his decision to suspend criminal proceedings based on alleged inconsistencies in the victim’s statements and her admission that she had “liked” the accused.
The case involved allegations that politician A.T. raped N.T. in 2011 when she was 18 years old. Police opened an investigation in 2021 and indicted the accused, who subsequently withdrew his candidacy from the DISY parliamentary elections. However, Angelides, who served as Minister of Defence in a DISY-led government until 2020, discontinued proceedings, citing credibility concerns about the victim’s testimony.
The ECHR condemned the approach as reflecting “prejudices and stereotypical perceptions” rather than objective handling of gender-based violence. The court criticised the lack of specialised psychological assessment and failure to properly evaluate the victim’s emotional relationship with the accused through the lens of psychological trauma.
Angelides defended the Law Office’s actions during his press conference: “A complaint was made and investigated by the Police, witness material was examined and a decision was made to prosecute this person. New evidence and testimonies emerged, which we had an obligation to evaluate.”
He emphasised that proceedings were discontinued “with reasoning far from ulterior motives” and noted the ECHR “did not find bad faith or abusive procedure or ulterior motives or intention to violate the victim’s rights.”
Regarding resignation demands, Angelides stated: “For me it is considered a direct threat to justice. Those who without even reading the decision started organised attacks, attempt to impose on courts to decide in a specific way and deprive freedom of judgment.”
The ruling represents the second ECHR judgment against Cyprus over rape case handling within months. In February 2025, the court ruled against Cyprus in X v. Cyprus, concerning a British teenager’s gang-rape allegations in Ayia Napa, finding similar “prejudicial gender stereotypes and victim-blaming attitudes.”
Angelides acknowledged both rulings “undoubtedly establish good practices for sexual violence cases” but stressed they involved “different persons in the Law Office” across different time periods.
When asked about responsibility, he clarified: “If I were a political figure, taking responsibility would mean resignation, but I am not a politician.”
The ECHR’s ruling noted that Cyprus failed to provide adequate justification for suspending prosecution or grant the victim access to relevant documents, contributing to secondary victimisation constituting gender-based discrimination.
Organisations and women’s rights groups will stage a demonstration outside the Law Office in Nicosia today at 6 pm to protest the handling of the case and sexism in Cyprus’s justice system.
Yesterday, seventeen organisations signed a joint statement describing the ECHR ruling as a “repeated confirmation of serious and structural pathologies of a sexist, inadequate and hostile towards victims justice system.”
Read more:
