The drama of a refugee girl from Syria who complained that she was raped and became pregnant, was revived in the hall of the Mixed Jury Court of Thessaloniki. The case began to be investigated in the fall of 2020, three months after the 16-year-old (then) complainant gave birth to the child, the result of her rape. In the dock sat a 33-year-old Egyptian who was sentenced to 12 years in prison, and after the court’s verdict he returned to the prisons where he is already being held for other crimes.

According to the case file, everything started in the summer of 2019 when the complainant and her two sisters, 14 and 9 years old (at the time), came to Greece, specifically to Thessaloniki. Their father stayed in Turkey, while the mother lived in Germany, where, according to the family’s wish, all three sisters were to travel for permanent settlement. Initially the minors were hosted by family friends and then stayed for a month with relatives with their mother, who in the meantime had moved from Germany to Thessaloniki.

Subsequently, the mother and daughters tried, according to the case file, to travel to Germany with false travel documents, but failed, so the former returned and began the process to legally achieve family reunification. For this purpose, the mother rented an apartment in the Neapolis – Sykeon area and agreed with the 33-year-old defendant, whom she knew through mutual acquaintances, that he would take care of the minor girls until their transfer to Germany was achieved. At the same time, she covered living expenses by sending money.

Under these circumstances, the 33-year-old was appointed “commissioner” of minors by court order. The defendant initially moved to the rented apartment once or twice a week, staying for a few hours, while from the end of the summer of the same year he settled permanently, staying overnight most of the time.

The orange light, the dizziness and the rape

As the patient complained, one night while her sisters were asleep, the accused offered her a glass of orange juice which contained an unknown substance. “I felt sick and sleepy. He followed me into the bedroom, pushed me onto the bed and raped me. I couldn’t react because of the dizziness,” she told the court. When he woke up a few hours later he found that he was bleeding, so he demanded an explanation from the accused. He allegedly told her he had videotaped her and threatened to post the footage on social media if she revealed what had happened.

According to what she testified, she realized that she had become pregnant in the 5th month of pregnancy, during which time the accused was already in prison for another case. When he was released from prison and informed of the pregnancy, the 33-year-old apparently offered to marry her but the girl refused. Finally, in July 2020, she gave birth at Hippocrates Hospital with forged documents that, according to the indictment, the 33-year-old had provided her in order not to reveal her minor.

Today, as she reported to the judges, she lives with her child and her sisters in a structure in Athens, they have obtained asylum, while their mother comes and visits them quite often.

What did he say in his apology?

In his apology, the 33-year-old denied the accusation of rape and claimed that everything was done with the consent of the young woman.

He also stated that they had an informal marriage and that the complainant asked for a divorce because she was afraid of her parents. He called the complaint false saying that the mother is behind it because they had quarreled with her over a trivial matter.