The evidentiary incident with the English tourist gang-raped in a hotel on the Sorrento Peninsula has begun

Torre Annunziata. The preliminary hearing at the Torre Annunziata Courthouse regarding the English tourist gang-raped in a hotel in Meta di Sorrento, where she was vacationing with her daughter in the summer of 2016, has been adjourned until 13 p.m. today. Preliminary Investigating Judge Emma Aufiero has ordered an urgent summons via certified email (PEC) to one of the lawyers representing the five young men who have been in prison for two months. The unrepeatable hearing requested by the Prosecutor's Office had been scheduled for 10 a.m. this morning, but in the preliminary hearing room on the ground floor of the Torre Annunziata Courthouse (which was off-limits this morning to everyone except the trial), the defense attorneys for the five requested a postponement due to the failure to notify one of the lawyers. However, Preliminary Investigating Judge Aufiero, considering that the victim, 50-year-old DMK, had arrived from Kent in England and is expected to depart this evening, ordered an urgent summons to the absent lawyer and an adjournment of a few hours. The English tourist was present in court accompanied by her lawyer, Lucilla Longone of the Naples Bar Association, while the five defendants were all held in custody. The Prosecutor's Office is seeking to consolidate the evidence against the eight individuals identified to date. Fabio De Virgilio, Antonino Miniero, Gennaro Davide Gargiulo, Raffaele Regio, and Francesco Ciro D'Antonio, who have been in prison since May, are accused of drugging and raping the English tourist on the night of October 6-7, 2016. Last month, two other hotel employees and the caretaker of a beach resort were also placed under investigation. The woman, DMK, will have to confirm the accusations made to the local police before the investigating judge and in the presence of the defendants' lawyers, who will attempt to dismantle her version of events. The five arrested have always denied gang rape and have stated that the woman consented and that she had sex with only three of them, but not in a group. The investigating judge, however, denied the preliminary investigation for the daughter of the 50-year-old English woman, partially accepting the objection presented by the lawyers of the barman Fabio de Virgilio of Portici (who professes his innocence and claims to have left home on a bus that evening). Alfredo and Mario Rosario Romaniello, in a statement filed with the Public Prosecutor's Office, objected, explaining that the girl is a witness who could be heard during the eventual trial: observations that the investigating judge agreed with.

Rosaria Federico