Prosecutors secured a conviction against a Bangladeshi migrant for the violent sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl—a brutal crime that left her paralyzed.
However, rather than prison, the judge allowed him to walk free, citing his cooperation and apology as sufficient cause for release without punishment.
The young girl visited a corner shop on the outskirts of Turin, Italy to buy food for her siblings when a 42-year-old Bangladeshi man lured her into the back of the shop and sexually assaulted her.
She returned home in tears and told her mother what had happened. The shopkeeper was then arrested and remanded in police custody.
However, just two days later, he was released after judges ruled that he had cooperated with police, had shown remorse, and apologised for his actions.
The case was widely covered in Italy, and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has ordered a review of the case.
According to Italian media, the girl told police: “He gave me a drink as a gift, then he came close to me and asked if I had a boyfriend.
“He asked me how old I was. I told him and he said, ‘You’re very young’,” she said.
She said she was left in “a state of shock, paralysed” by the assault.
Security cameras are said to have found that the shopkeeper had tried to allegedly assault an adult woman 40 minutes earlier.
GB News report: Prosecutors are set to appeal the judges’ decision to free the man.
Ms Meloni took to social media to say: “A young girl of 13 leaves home to buy some snacks for her siblings. She goes into a mini market. She comes out devastated.
“A man is arrested, accused of perpetrating the violence against her. Prosecutors demand that he be remanded in jail. Two nights. Then he’s out.
“The judges’ reasoning? That he did not have a criminal record, that he had cooperated with them, that he had said he was ‘sorry’.
“‘Sorry’. Who’s going to explain all this to the family? Who is going to explain to the neighbourhood, which has to live with the fact that the man will be back there this evening? All my solidarity with the girl and her family.”
Carlo Nordio, the justice minister, has ordered inspectors from the ministry to examine the case and the judges’ ruling.
Paola Boscaini, an MP with Forza Italia, one of the three parties that make up Ms Meloni’s governing coalition, said: “If we really want to protect women and fight violence against women, we cannot accept that a person accused of molesting a 13-year-old girl can be permitted to leave prison after 48 hours just because the judges said that he was sorry.
“The state is delivering a very dangerous message with this. It is unacceptable.”
Ms Meloni’s government has frequently accused Italy’s justice system of being soft on issues of illegal migration and of being Left-leaning.
An organisation that fights against child sexual abuse has announced they will hold a demonstration in front of the main court in Turin on Friday.