Italians are different. Really different!
It has recently been discovered that an all-female panel of Italian judges overturned a rape conviction, arguing that the alleged victim was too ugly to have been raped.
Can’t you just hear SNL’s Father Guido Sarducci commenting on this case?
“She is a bigga’ girl for a Peruvian. And a ugly too. No way any man would a rape her. She couldn’t a give it away.”
I know, I know, politically incorrect, just like the Italians I lived and worked with in the mid-80s near Pisa as a young Army captain.
ROME (AP) — Italy’s Justice Ministry has ordered a preliminary inquiry into an appeals court ruling that overturned a rape verdict in part by arguing that the woman who was attacked was too ugly to be a credible rape victim.
The ruling has sparked outrage in Italy, prompting a flash mob Monday outside the Ancona court, where protesters shouted “Shame!” and held up signs saying “indignation.”
The appeals sentence was handed down in 2017 — by an all-female panel — but the reasons behind it only emerged publicly when Italy’s high court annulled it on March 5 and ordered a retrial. The Court of Cassation said Wednesday its own reasons for ordering the retrial will be issued next month.
Two Peruvian men were initially convicted of the 2015 rape of a Peruvian woman in Ancona, but the Italian appeals court overturned the verdict and absolved them, finding that she was not a credible witness. In part of the ruling, the court noted that the suspects had found her unattractive and too “masculine” to be a credible rape victim.
Cinzia Molinaro, a lawyer for the victim, said her appeal to the Cassation contested a host of procedural problems with the acquittal verdict but said she had also cited the “absolute unacceptability” of the Italian court’s reference to the victim’s physical appearance.
The appeals sentence quoted one of the suspects as saying he found the woman unattractive and had her listed as “Viking” on his cellphone.
Molinaro noted that the woman, who has since returned to Peru, had suffered such genital trauma in the rape that she required stitches.
The Justice Ministry said it was conducting the “necessary preliminary investigations” into the appeals verdict. Molinaro said the ministry can send investigators to a court to check if there were any problems or omissions in the sentence, even when the case is still under appeal.
The case is the second to spark criticism in recent weeks in Italy, where cases of sexual violence and the murders of women regularly top the news.
Protests broke out earlier this month after an appeals court in Bologna nearly cut in half the sentence for a man who admitted to killing his partner. The court cited as one of its reasons for the reduction the “emotional storm” of jealousy that the killer experienced. Critics said the reduced sentence basically sanctioned the practice of “honor killings.”
This story tracks perfectly with the Italy I know and love and a story I reported on in 2014….
From The Washington Times
A car with diplomatic plates belonging to the Vatican was stopped by French police and found to be transporting nine pounds of cocaine.
Two Italian men who were entrusted with 91-year-old retired Cardinal Jorge Maria Mejia’s vehicle allegedly drove to Spain and picked up the drugs, the Telegraph reported Wednesday. Security staff for the retired Argentinian had instructed the men to take the car in for regularly-scheduled maintenance.
“Cardinal Mejia is not well and obviously has nothing to do with this,” said Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, the Telegraph reported. “It’s now up to the police to pursue their investigations.”
The arrested individuals were also in possession of seven ounces of cannabis.
Footnote from Thomas Madison
Father Guido Sarducci, who claimed to only be a passenger in the vehicle, discussed his involvement in the incident.
Sarducci explained: “I was a just a riding along, you know? Kinda’ like a hitch a hikin’, just a getting a ride a back a to a da Vatican. I had a one a Coke all a the way. It was in a red a can. I bought it at a gas a station. Thassa’ the only kinda’ Coke I know about.”
Please be advised that the part of the story, above, involving Father Guido Sarducci, is satire that I added myself for comedic value. People are actually writing to inform me that the article can’t be legit because Guido Sarducci was an SNL character. ~ Thomas Madison
