Ciro Grillo trial: All convicted of gang rape

Eight years to Ciro Grillo (son of the founder of the 5 Star Movement Beppe), Edoardo Capitta and Vittorio Lauria, six and a half years to Francesco Corsiglia .

This is the sentence handed down by the panel of the Tempio Pausania Court, presided over by Judge Marco Contu, regarding the alleged gang rape that took place on the night between 16 and 17 July 2019 in Porto Cervo, at Beppe Grillo's villa, against an Italian-Norwegian student who was 19 at the time, like all the defendants.

The panel recognized mitigating circumstances for the four and awarded a provisional sum of €10,000 to the civil plaintiffs Ciro Grillo, Lauria, and Capitta, and €5,000 to Corsiglia. Corsiglia was convicted of gang rape but acquitted of sexually assaulting the Italian-Norwegian student's friend by taking and distributing sexually explicit photos taken while she was sleeping on the couch in the Grillo family home. Compensation for the injured parties will then be determined in the civil proceedings.

The judges' decision came after three hours of deliberation.

Prosecutor Gregorio Capasso had requested a nine-year prison sentence for the four young men. The defense reiterated their request for acquittal today, calling the charges inconsistent and contradictory, and the victim unreliable.

With the defendants absent, the main accuser was also absent from the courtroom: "I strongly advised her against it, but it's as if she were here," said Giulia Bongiorno, the plaintiff's lawyer. Bongiorno said that her client, "tormented for six years," "cried" today. She also called this ruling "important" because it "encourages women to report the crime."

Six years after the events, the first-instance verdict has finally arrived. It concludes a very long trial, which included dramatic and tense moments, particularly during the hearings dedicated to the victim's testimony .

But the story doesn't end there. Antonella Cuccureddu, Francesco Corsiglia's lawyer, has already announced she will appeal a sentence she called "surprising." During the trial, the lawyer said, the girl "was contradicted on every aspect of the facts, even by her own friends."