Family say Irish woman is coping in Cypriot prison

Irish woman Annette Mangan (22), who has served 10 days of her four-month jail sentence for laying a false accusation of rape against three Irish men in Cyprus, is coping well in Nicosia Central Prison.

"Annette is grand," her sister, Ms Avril Mangan, told The Irish Times following a 90minute visit to the prison yesterday morning.

Over the past few days, Ms Mangan has been accompanied on prison visits by her father, Mr Albert Mangan, and her brother, Graham, who arrived from Castle Park, Tallaght, at the weekend.

The Cypriot authorities usually make generous arrangements for visitors from abroad to meet foreign prisoners and in this case the family has been permitted daily visits.

A new lawyer has been appointed to handle an appeal for "clemency" or "reduction of sentence", rather than an attempt to get a presidential pardon, a remedy initially suggested.

This appeal, now in the drafting stage, will be submitted to the attorney general, Mr Alecos Markides, who has not yet returned from abroad where he served as legal adviser to the Cypriot President, Mr Glafkos Clerides, during last week's UN-brokered talks to find a settlement to the Cypriot territorial dispute, held near Montreux, Switzerland.

According to Mr Mangan, who had talks with the lawyer on Monday, Mr Markides is expected back on the island in six days.

A source close to the case said that it could take two weeks to lodge the appeal, after which there would be consideration of the case.

The Mangan family expects to stay in Cyprus until the lawyer's letter is submitted to the attorney general's office and a date is set for developing the appeal.

Issues on which Mangan might base the appeal include:

Although she said she could not remember what happened, Mangan was convinced that she had been assaulted following a night of heavy drinking. So convinced was she that she reported the matter to the police in spite of the fact that she found her situation deeply disturbing and frightening. Therefore, she did not intentionally lay a false claim of rape against the three men she thought to be her attackers.

It was only after a medical examination showed she had not been subjected to violent sexual abuse, and under police pressure, that she withdrew her claim of rape and signed a statement that she had made the complaint to take revenge for photographs which were taken of her while she was not fully clothed and asleep.

Only 15 hours after signing this statement, Mangan, after 10 minutes' consultation with a lawyer, was proclaimed guilty and sentenced to four months in prison by Judge Antonis Liatzos, who sought to make "an example" of her.

This sentence, in the view of many Cypriots, was particularly harsh as last month Judge Liatzos sentenced a Greek-Cypriot fisherman, Mr Pavlos Georgiou, a registered HIV carrier, to just six months' imprisonment - instead of the maximum two years - for infecting his English lover, Ms Janette Pink, with the virus which has developed into full-blown AIDS.