Four suspects with roots in the Congo, Nigeria, and Morocco have been arrested following the assault, robbery, and gang rape of a Polish couple and a Peruvian transsexual in Rimini, Italy.
The two Moroccans handed themselves in after being identified by family members, The Times reports.
A man from Nigeria — who claims to be 16-years-old — was captured shortly afterwards, whilst a 20-year-old from the Congo was intercepted whilst attempting to escape to France by train.
The last of these — Guerlin Butungu — is the only one to have been named by the authorities. He is an asylum seeker whose claim was rejected, “but granted temporary permission to stay in Italy until 2018 on humanitarian grounds” regardless, according to the Associated Press.
Migrant Crisis: African migrants beat young Polish man unconscious and gang rape his wife on Rimini Beach, Italy https://t.co/N01Zbwz5ap
— Jack Montgomery ن (@JackBMontgomery) August 26, 2017
The two Moroccans, said to be aged 15 and 17 and born in Italy, were ordered to turn themselves in by their father, a welder named as Mohamed by the Italian press.
“I recognised them from the photos in your newspaper, from the way they walked,” he told the Il Resto del Carlino newspaper.
“I told them to go straight to the police. I don’t want my sons doing this shit. It can happen that someone steals a mobile phone, but not that he rapes a woman. If they did something like that, they must pay.
“If someone rapes one of my women, my wife or my mother or my daughter, I will kill them.”
https://twitter.com/JackBMontgomery/status/902942192506949632
The case has only just begun to receive coverage from establishment media in the UK, but has caused uproar in Italy, particularly after a Muslim ‘cultural mediator’ working for one of the country’s migrant reception centres commented that rape is “a worse act, but only at the beginning, when the willy goes in, then the woman becomes calm and you enjoy it like normal intercourse” shortly after the attacks.
Populist leader Matteo Salvini said the case was proof that “prison is not enough” to deter certain categories of crime, and called for the perpetrators to be chemically castrated.
Polish leaders were similarly outraged, with the deputy justice minister branding the attackers “beasts” and arguing they should face the death penalty — although this is outlawed by the European Union, which dictates certain aspects of criminal justice to its member-states.
Warsaw is attempting to have the four extradited to face charges in Poland, but it is unclear whether or not the Italians will consent to this.
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