Catania, 13 year old raped, shock in the courtroom: “She was consenting”

April 26, 2024, 12:39 pm

2 min read

CATANA – “She was consenting”. Shocking and unspeakable words. A spontaneous statement, made by one of those arrested, of Egyptian nationality, for the most part gang rape on January 30th at Villa Bellini in Catania. Words that caused confusion in the courtroom. Especially because the victim is a girl under the age of 14.

The suspect asked to speak at the end of the evidentiary incident which took place in an equipped courtroom at the Catania juvenile court. From behind one-way glass, in protected mode, the victim and her boyfriend were interrogated by investigating magistrates Anna Russo and Carlo Cannella. The judges asked questions from the parties.

They, the suspects were on the other side of the glass. All obviously without the possibility of contact, not even visual.

The ability to testify

At the opening of the hearing, a psychiatrist and a psychologist, Alfina Scuderi and Graziella Trovato, testified and confirmed the absence of pathologies of the boy witness. The boy is also an offended person: While others abused her, some held him down forcibly. According to the experts, there are no pathologies capable of affecting her ability to testify.

The questions, as mentioned, were asked by the investigating magistrates, formulated by the deputy Anna Trinchillo and by the deputy prosecutor Sebastiano Ardita and by the prosecutors of the Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office Carla Santocono and Orazio Longo. The seven suspects, of Egyptian nationality, are defended by lawyers Abate, Cipriano, Cinquerrui, Ganci and Ventura (adults), Gulizia and Mauceri minors.

The victim’s boyfriend is assisted by the lawyer Eleonora BarattaWhile the lawyer Puglisi assists the raped girl. Both were interrogated during the evidentiary incident. The protected interrogation was recorded.

The river-hearing

It was a hearing that lasted approximately five hours. And very crowded, due to the presence, as well as of the detained suspects and their escortsalso of guardians, interpreters, who translated synthetically for them, clerks and audio-video technicians, sitting at the circular table in front of the darkened glass only the procedural parts.

Then, as mentioned, finally, the words of one of the suspects, whose DNA was found on the victim’s clothing. His statements, in which he essentially accuses the victim of having given consent to intercourse with some of them in the victim’s bathrooms, rekindle the horror of that afternoon of violence.

And they foreshadow a process that it promises to be animated to say the least. Now the papers are returned from the investigating magistrates’ offices to the two prosecutors who are investigating.

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