The rapist in Turin is a foreign national, but the newspapers are practising self-censorship. The triumph of judicial ‘wokeness’

The man who on Friday committed two sexual assaults in Turin within the space of 40 minutes – first against a woman who has not yet been identified and then against a 13-year-old girl – is a non-EU national with no fixed abode. Just two nights after his arrest, the man was released by the investigating magistrate because he had ‘proved cooperative’ and ‘shown remorse’. These incredible grounds prompted Justice Minister Nordio to order inspectors to be sent to the Turin court to carry out an investigation. The story was reported yesterday in La Stampa but in an incomplete manner: in fact, there was no mention whatsoever of the man’s nationality, to the extent that readers assumed he was Italian. This is not the case, as Il Foglio has verified. The paradoxes of judicial ‘wokeness’. (Antonucci continues in supplement VI)

The decision not to specify the man’s nationality appears paradoxical and motivated by a ‘woke’ mindset that has long since taken a firm hold, even in court reporting. When those involved in news stories are Italian, their geographical origin is routinely specified: ‘A man of Lombard origin’, ‘a young man of Apulian origin’. If, on the other hand, the perpetrators of the crimes are foreigners, their nationality is often – as in this case – omitted altogether, as if reporting it were an expression of an intolerant or racist attitude. Thus, press freedom restricts itself in the name of a ‘woke’ extremism that proves to make no sense whatsoever.

In the Turin case, the man who committed two sexual offences (one of which was aggravated, as it was committed against a 13-year-old girl) is not only a non-EU citizen (originally from Bangladesh) but also homeless. This is another piece of information that readers deserve to be told.

However, this is not all. The suspect’s nationality and personal circumstances are not the only details that have been withheld from readers. While the name of the investigating prosecutor, Paolo Cappelli, has been disclosed, the name of the judge who ordered the man’s release has been deliberately omitted. Yet the judge makes her decisions in the name of the Italian people: why, then, should her identity be withheld? On reading the court documents, however, it transpires that the judge’s name is Anna Mascolo.

The identity of the judge is all the more important when one considers the grounds set out in the order by which he rejected the request to apply the precautionary measure of detention to the suspect, releasing him and subjecting him to a mild obligation to sign in. While it is indeed legitimate in a democracy to subject a judicial decision to criticism, it is difficult to see how this right can be exercised without knowing the identity of the judge, who, moreover, assumes responsibility for that decision.

According to the court order, the 42-year-old man works in a convenience store in Madonna di Campagna, on the far northern outskirts of Turin. Last Friday morning, as documented by the store’s CCTV cameras, a woman in her early 40s entered the convenience store to purchase groceries. Shortly afterwards, she was “repeatedly approached and groped on the buttocks by the suspect”. The woman fled.

A few minutes later, the suspect approached the 13-year-old girl, spoke to her and asked her how old she was. “I told him I was 13 and he said ‘very young’,” the girl would later recount. Immediately afterwards, the girl was hugged by the man and had her breasts groped. “Forced to undergo sexual acts,” the prosecutor would write. The girl ran away, in a state of shock. She called her mother, who reported the incident to the police.

The man was taken into custody and spent two nights at the ‘Lorusso e Cutugno’ prison. At that point, the public prosecutor requested that he be remanded in custody, emphasising that the suspect had acted ‘in full knowledge of the fact that the victim was thirteen years old’ and that he had previously committed a similar sexual offence against another woman. “It is clear that, if released, he would commit further offences similar to that described in the charge,” stated the public prosecutor, also highlighting the risk of the suspect absconding, given that he is “a non-EU citizen with no fixed abode or stable employment in Italy”.

Investigating Magistrate Mascolo, however, whilst acknowledging the existence of ‘serious evidence of guilt’ against the suspect, as well as ‘the need for precautionary measures’, given that the two incidents of sexual assault “highlight the suspect’s difficulty in controlling his impulses”, she decided to reject the public prosecutor’s request and release the man, imposing on him only the obligation to report to the police daily. This was due to his clean criminal record, his ‘cooperative behaviour’, the ‘remorse shown during questioning’ and ‘the deterrent effect caused by the trauma of the arrest and his first experience of detention’. These are surreal reasons, which Justice Minister Nordio now wishes to investigate further.