Poland will seek the extradition from Italy of the four suspects in the gang rape of a Polish tourist on a beach, Poland’s deputy justice minister said Monday.
Patryk Jaki said the country was planning to open negotiations with the Italian side over extraditing the four, who are also alleged to have attacked the victim’s partner at the Italian resort of Rimini.
The four are also alleged to have raped a Peruvian woman on the same night in a separate incident.
It’s not immediately clear if Italy would agree to extradition.
“I don’t want to jump to conclusions now,” Jaki told state Radio 3.
He said the four, if found guilty, should “face very high punishment as an example, because the punishment should be preventive and make others think seven times before they try to commit such a crime.”
The suspects are a 20-year-old Congolese asylum-seeker, two Moroccan brothers, aged 15 and 17, who were born in Italy and a 16-year-old Nigerian, also reportedly born in Italy.
According to Italian media, all four have denied any role in the attack, but reports in Poland say a watch belonging to the partner of the raped Pole was found on the Congolese suspect.
Cristina Ugolini, the head of a center assisting migrants in Pesaro, where the Congolese suspect was assigned, told Sky TG24 TV he had been granted “humanitarian protection” in September 2016 and attended the center until April 2017, without providing any cause for alarm.
“He was sociable, well-mannered, kind,” Ugolini said.
