Woman gang-raped in Sicilian port city, three held

Catania (Italy), Oct 2 (IANS/AKI) A 25-year-old woman was hospitalised on Monday after allegedly being repeatedly gang-raped by an acquaintance and two other men in the Sicilian port city of Catania.

Police arrested the three men, aged 23, 34 and 36 for attacking the woman in an isolated area of southeast Catania near where the woman lived, after offering to drive her home from a local discotheque.

A passer-by found the woman wandering along a road in a distressed state at around 5 a.m. after the alleged attack and called police and ambulance.

The woman, who was reportedly tipsy, said she accepted the lift from one of the men, as she knew him slightly, but when she got into his car, found there were two other males sitting in the back.

A spate of rapes by gangs who included minors were reported at several locations on the southern Italian coast this summer.

Several of the victims of the alleged gang rapes were schoolgirls, while the purported rapists included Italians and immigrants.

--IANS/AKI

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