The prosecutor’s office in the Italian city of Milan is investigating the alleged assault of a Belgian student and her friends on New Year’s Eve. The young woman says that she was subjected to verbal and sexual abuse on the square in front of the city’s cathedral.
Italian prosecutors investigating alleged sexual assault of a Belgian student and her friends on New Year’s Eve
Published:
A group of 6 people in their 20s, 4 women and 2 men, from Liège went to bring in the new year on the square in front of Milan Cathedral. Just after midnight the atmosphere became grim and youths started firing fireworks at those celebrating the new year on the busy square. The group of Belgians wanted to leave and tell the police about the fireworks. However, they were surrounded by several dozen men that clearly had ill-intent
One of the women told the Francophone news site 7sur7 that “It is then that we were groped on and in the case of some of us under our clothes. Someone put his hand in my pants, one of my friends was groped on her breasts. We were powerless. In the end I was rescued by an Italian whose wife had also been harassed.”
The Milan prosecutor's office says that an investigation has been launched on the basis of the press reports and pending a complaint from the victims. The group of friends plans to lodge a complaint with police in Liège.
The Milan prosecutor's office says that it currently has no suspects. Detectives will examine CCTV footage in an effort to find the culprits. The Belgian Foreign Minister Bernard Quintin (Francophone liberal) says that the Foreign Ministry is monitoring the situation closely.