Justice Minister Defends House Arrest Decision in Caivano Rape Case

The judge's decision to grant house arrest with electronic monitoring to one of the two adults accused of raping two cousins aged 10 and 12 years in Caivano is "supported by motivational reasoning and thus there are no symptomatic elements of incorrect management of the procedures envisaged" by the magistrates. And the legal assessment of the facts is "exclusively within the competence of the judicial authority concerned". Thus, the Minister of Justice, Carlo Nordio, responded to an inquiry from the Lega senator, Gianluca Cantalamessa, who last December had asked the ministry about the process that led to the granting of the benefit and whether it intended to evaluate any investigations in the specific case. In his response, Nordio explained that "the measure of house arrest with electronic monitoring, especially due to the significant distance, approximately 700 kilometers, between the municipality of F. and that of Caivano (Naples), the place where the events occurred and where both the victims and the family members and various members of the group to which M. belonged and within which the criminal event matured, still reside". Furthermore, the Minister of Justice specified that "as for the correct reconstruction of the events, at this stage there are no symptomatic elements of incorrect management of the procedures envisaged, the decision of the judge for preliminary investigations being supported by motivational reasoning in terms of fact and law. Then, due to the separation of powers, since the scrutiny and legal assessment of the facts are exclusively within the competence of the judicial authority concerned, in case of disagreement with the related decisions, the legal instrument provided by the system is that of appeal".