A Tunisian man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping two young women after posing as a tattoo artist and luring them to an isolated farmhouse near Milan.
As reported by Il Giorno, the victims had met at a residential center for troubled girls and formed a close friendship. The younger girl, who was 17, wanted the name of her 18-year-old friend tattooed on her arm as a symbol of their bond.
The pair met the 33-year-old man in Milan last spring after he claimed he could carry out the tattoo. Instead, he took them to a farmhouse, where he assaulted them and held a knife to the throat of one of the victims during the attack.
The prosecution had sought a 14-year prison term, but an Italian court handed down a 10-year sentence at a preliminary hearing in Milan following an expedited trial. The court also ordered the defendant to pay an interim award of €25,000 to each victim.
The man had been arrested in Spain and is now being held in Milan’s San Vittore prison.
After the verdict was delivered, he began protesting loudly inside and outside the courtroom. Speaking in Arabic, he complained about the severity of the sentence and shouted that it amounted to “death” for him.
