Here comes the first sentence for the sexual assaults in Piazza Duomo in Milan on New Year’s Eve 2022. The fifth criminal section of the Court of Milan inflicted 5 years and 10 months of prison on Abdallah Bouguedra, 22 years old and born in Turin, for group sexual violence for the most serious episode against a 19-year-old girl who was in the company of a friend on the corner with via Mazzini. The investigation, coordinated by the adjunct Letizia Mannella and the prosecutor Alessia Menegazzo and conducted by the Flying Squad, revealed that a dozen girls were surrounded by a “human wall”, a “pack” of young people who forced them to suffer abuse.
This is therefore the first sentence for episodes that created great social alarm and for which the verdict will arrive on Thursday 4 May for two other defendants who chose the abbreviated procedure.
The judges instead acquitted Bouguedra for the other disputed crime, the charge of robbery, “because the crime does not exist” and awarded the 19-year-old civil party a provisional compensation from 30 thousand euros. A compensation of 7,000 euros was also recognized against the defendant in favor of the Municipality of Milan, the civil party.
The defence
“Until proven otherwise, he did not commit the crime, it has not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed the disputed conduct and therefore he must be acquitted”. With these words, the lawyer Giuseppe Boccia, at the end of the speech, had asked for the acquittal for the 22-year-old who “was not in the group of 30-40 aggressors and the offended person may have been confused”, added the defender, also speaking of an “acknowledgement against the defendant influenced by the media”. defendant, who is under house arrest, the prosecutor had asked a 6-year sentence and the judges (President of the Luisa Savoia college) have retired to the council chamber and will come out today with the sentence.
The accusation
Prosecutor Alessia Menegazzo reiterated several times in her indictment that the defendant lied in the investigations and in the trial, claiming that she was not in the group of attackers: «For him – she said – the victim would have voluntarily dived into the group of 30 -40 young people, an offensive version for the victim”. Against her, continued the prosecutor, there are the statements “of the two girls, their friends, the video of the eyewitness, the seized clothing identical to those taken in the images and worn by him and the interceptions”.