Palermo rape, the defense wants the victim in the courtroom. The lawyer: “There is a risk of secondary victimisation”

It started Friday 24 May before the Board of the second criminal section of the Court of Palermo the trial of the six adult boys (the seventh minor at the time of the facts has already been sentenced by the Juvenile Court of Palermo to eight years and eight months) accused of having rapedin July 2023, one 19 year old girl at the Foro Italico.

The hearing was last month opened and immediately returned to allow the change of composition of the panel of judges. The defendants had presented a request during the preliminary hearing admission to the abbreviated procedure, conditioning the request to a series of new activities, including the examination of the victim in the courtroom. Request that the judge of the preliminary hearing in Palermo Cristina Lo Bue had rejected.

“The last two hearings were almost identical, but before different judges,” he explained to Fanpage.it the girl’s lawyer, Carla Garofalo. “On Friday we appeared before the three judges of the court’s panel. At this stage of the trial, before the opening of the hearing, as required by law, the defenders once again proposed the request for application of the conditional summary procedureand the exceptions on the constitution of the Municipality of Palermo as a civil party, an exception already rejected previously by the Gup, which had in fact admitted the constitution of the Municipality as a civil party”.

“The Public Prosecutor and us representatives of the civil parties obviously we opposed all requests – explains the lawyer again -, in particular to the reminder of the offended party, considering the request specious, given that the girl has already responded exhaustively to the facts in various procedural circumstances, and dangerous, because after a year from the events the stimulation of memories could create a serious situation of secondary victimizationrecognized by the Constitutional Court and by many rulings of the Supreme Court”.

Also because, as the lawyer Garofalo further explains, the girl, 19 years old at the time of the events, attempted in this year to take back his life. “We made sure that she moved away from Palermo, now she has started working, it is her first experience. And this situation of returning to the classroom could destabilize in an important way. Now the next hearing will be on June 10thwhen the reservation on these requests will be lifted.”

“The judges did not decide on Friday because, unlike the preliminary hearing judge, they do not yet have the trial documents, and they asked the public prosecutor to provide those relating to theevidentiary incident and other fundamental papers, then they will study them and decide whether to accept this conditional summary or whether the trial will proceed with the ordinary rite”, continues the lawyer.

As Garofalo explains, the defense had originally conditioned the abbreviated to confrontation of the girl with some of their witnesses: “Then, a few days before the hearing before the preliminary hearing judge, they brought out a advice technique on the offended party’s phone, which would bring out a call received before the violence and a subsequent text message, at 2 am.”

“The insinuation is that she called during the violencebut from the evidentiary incident it has already emerged that she was barred from using the telephone when she wanted to ask her boyfriend for help – specifies Garofalo -. The call apparently took place before the violence and on Instagram, but it is not known if someone answered or if it was simply made by mistake because the content was missing. We don’t even know who it was actually made by. And in any case it would be before the violence began.”

During interrogations the girl said she had not used the phone during the violence. According to the defense of the six defendants, the call would demonstrate that she was a liar and that she may also have lied about other things. “This is the discussion. – confirms Garofalo – But it is on record that the girl fainted three times and that one of the accused also told the others not to make phone calls because, he claimed, ‘they send us the police'”.

“I clearly said in court on Friday that their defense has always been overly aggressive. – concludes the lawyer – It seems to me that it is more oriented towards humiliating and discrediting my client, rather than obtaining results”.