Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister has demanded chemical castration for the attackers who allegedly gang-raped a teenage girl in public toilets.
Matteo Salvini said the girl was ‘raped by a gang of seven Egyptians’ and that there can ‘only be one cure: chemical castration’.
The girl, 13, was sexually assaulted in the Villa Bellini park in Catania, Sicily, around 7.30 pm on January 30 while on a walk with her 17-year-old boyfriend.
According to Mail Online, a group of young men forced the girl and her boyfriend into a public bathroom, where some of them held the boyfriend back while two others allegedly gang-raped the girl.
There are seven male suspects – three of them minors- who allegedly entered Italy illegally between November 2021 and March 2023 as ‘unaccompanied minors’, La Repubblica reports. The suspects are reportedly from Egypt and aged 15 to 19.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who was in Catania on a pre-arranged visit, said she was shocked about the rape. She expressed her sympathies for the victim and her family and promised that ‘justice will be done’.
Salvini said the proposal for chemical castration would be presented by his Lega party soon, with Annalisa Tardino, MEP from the same party, adding: ‘We remain firm in the idea that chemical castration is needed for rapists and paedophiles, life imprisonment for similar episodes, as well as greater security in our cities.’
She also called for the suspects to be sent back to Egypt immediately.
The girl said that two of the accused grabbed her while the others grabbed her boyfriend.
‘And they took us to the bathrooms of the villa. It was a nightmare, there was no one there at that time,’ the girl told La Repubblica.
She said she was trying to free herself, as was her boyfriend, but they couldn’t overpower the seven teenagers.
Two of them allegedly raped her while the others watched. She said: ‘And they forced my boyfriend to watch too.’
‘He was screaming, he was desperate. I said: “I beg you, I beg you, don’t hurt me, let me go2.’
The rape went on for 30 minutes until the couple could finally break free and escape. They immediately alerted the Carabinieri, who managed to catch the group within 24 hours.
The victim has identified the two underage alleged perpetrators of the rape, police said yesterday.
