The strangled remains of Anastazja Rubińska were found by Greek police last year after a week-long investigation following the 27-year-old's disappearance.

Rubińska, from Wrocław in western Poland, had arrived on the island in May, where she and her boyfriend found a job at a five-star hotel in the resort of Marmari.

On the evening of June 12, she went to a shop and then to a local restaurant where she met a group of men from Pakistan and Bangladesh and attempted to buy cannabis.

A few minutes after calling her boyfriend to say that one of them would drive her home, she contacted him again, asking him to pick her up and sending him her location.

But when he arrived, she was nowhere to be found. Her half-naked body was found six days later under a bush.

An autopsy revealed that she had been strangled to death.

Salahuddin S. from Bangladesh, who was picked up by police with scratch marks on his arms and face, was charged with her murder.

Appearing in court on Monday, he pleaded not guilty.

Rubińska’s mother, who is an auxiliary prosecutor during the trial, is now demanding that the 33-year-old be given a life sentence.

She said: “I have waited a long time for this moment to be able to look this degenerate in the eye and ask why he murdered my child.”