A 22-year-old man from Mali, accused of raping a woman in her seventies inside her home in Pistoia, has been freed after an Italian court annulled his pre-trial detention on technical grounds. Judges found that the original custody order had not been translated into French, a language the defendant understands.
The assault took place on June 19, 2025, when the attacker allegedly followed the woman into her building, threatened her with a knife, and held her captive before carrying out the rape. He fled the scene but was located two days later at Florence’s main train station and arrested. Since late June, he had been held in custody while awaiting trial.
Proceedings against him began last week in Pistoia, where the victim had to recount the attack in court. She gave evidence about what prosecutors describe as a sustained and traumatic assault inside her own home.
However, on Tuesday, the Florence review court overturned the detention order after the defense successfully argued that the failure to translate the document into the defendant’s primary language constituted a serious procedural violation.
The man is now free in Italy, and proceedings must be restarted.
The victim’s family said they fear the man could seek revenge and that the family is now reluctant to leave the house.
“She identified him and testified against him, and now we are the ones living in fear,” said the victim’s daughter, as cited by La Nazione. She raised concerns that the suspect has no fixed address and has not been placed under electronic monitoring, making it highly likely he could either abscond or target the family.
The controversy comes amid broader criticism in Italy over how the justice system handles serious offenses involving foreign nationals and asylum seekers. In a separate case earlier this year, an Italian appeals court refused to extradite a Pakistani man accused of murder in Greece, ruling that prison conditions there could violate protections under the European Convention on Human Rights. The decision led to his release in Italy despite an active European arrest warrant.
The judiciary has also faced mounting political pressure from the government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, with senior figures arguing that a pattern of rulings has undermined efforts to tighten immigration controls and enforce deportations. Previous court interventions have blocked migrant transfer policies and overturned detention orders for individuals earmarked for removal, prompting sharp criticism from ministers, including Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, who say such decisions weaken public confidence in the system.
Even many of those who are successfully convicted of offenses are serving their sentences outside of prison. As of January 2026, over 30,000 foreign nationals who had been handed a custodial sentence were doing their time outside of prison.
In January of this year, Rosita Solano, whose parents were murdered in Sicily in 2015 by an Ivorian asylum seeker, said that victims are often left without adequate protection or support. She argued that while offenders receive legal aid and state assistance, victims frequently face long-term consequences with limited support.
“In Italy, those who commit crimes are protected, legally assisted with free legal aid, food, and lodging, while those who suffer a crime count for nothing,” she said. “Victims are abandoned and invisible.”
“No immediate medical or psychological support, no help, no protection,” she said when asked what services had been made available to her in the aftermath of the gruesome double homicide, further revealing that families were left to cover legal and therapeutic costs themselves.
