She, a young woman now 22 years old, of Tunisian origin, ran away from home and in August 2021 reported her parents, and then built another life for herself: according to her, she wanted to follow a Western lifestyle, without submitting to their rules and harassment. The 63-year-old father and 58-year-old mother ended up on trial for mistreatment of their daughter, which occurred between Reggio and Albinea, a charge from which they were acquitted yesterday by the panel of judges chaired by Cristina Beretti, alongside Silvia Semprini and Giovanni Ghini, “because the fact does not exist.” Yesterday the lawyer Gianluca Tirelli, who protects the 22-year-old, withdrew the complaint and filed a civil action: “My client had the opportunity to speak and clarify things with her parents. Now, even though she lives alone, she has started to hang out with them. They made peace”, says Tirelli. In May 2023 the young woman said she had been subjected to harsh conduct. She was beaten for ten years by her father, even with belts and sticks; her mother would only intervene in the most serious cases.
“They forced me to follow Islam even if I didn’t want to,” he said. And then she had said no for the clothes being too skimpy and for encounters with men. Until her decision to leave in October 1920, she lived in different homes, during which time her father allegedly threatened her on the phone to throw acid on her. Yesterday, prosecutor Denise Panoutsopoulos, who inherited the investigation from her colleague Marco Marano, asked for a 2-year sentence for her father with general mitigating circumstances; for her mother, however, her acquittal, claiming that she intervened to interrupt the interactions between father and daughter and in turn she may have been harassed.
The parents are assisted by the lawyer Domenico Noris Bucchi, who was replaced yesterday during the speech by his colleague lawyer Leonardo Teggi: “Islam has nothing to do with this matter. It is simply a question of a severe education which takes the form of teaching , if we want even severe for our times, of the parents to their daughter. No more and no less than what can happen in a Christian family”, argued the defense asking for the acquittal of both. To then point out that there was no proof of mistreatment “which should be deduced from the daughter’s testimony that she may have perceived the facts in a distorted way and that, moreover, she has recently reconnected with her parents”.
Alessandra Codeluppi
