15-year-old British tourists “drugged and raped” at party: four arrests in Matera

It was supposed to be an evening of pure fun, in a villa in Marconia di Pisticci, in the province of Matera, to celebrate a birthday. For two British underage tourists, however, the night between the night of September 6 and 7 would soon turn into a nightmare that ended in group sexual violence. The two girls found the strength to report the rape and were escorted to the Matera hospital, where their health was reviewed and the doctors confirmed the violence. Now, the turning point. The Matera mobile squad, at dawn this morning, arrested and took to jail four boys from Pisticci: Michele Masiello, 23, Alberto Lopatriello (22), Alessandro Zuccaro (21) and Giuseppe Gargano (19). They will have to defend themselves against very serious charges ranging from sexual violence to ongoing and aggravated personal injury. According to what was said by the Matera prosecutor, Pietro Argentino, the investigators reported three other people on the loose and a fourth is in the process of identification. As part of the investigations, several people informed of the events were listened to and the images of the surveillance cameras of the village were analyzed, which framed the immediately preceding and immediate phases of the sexual violence. In addition, the scientific police also found important evidence.

The complaint

According to the investigation, coordinated by the Matera Prosecutor’s Office, the tourists were on vacation in Pisticci to meet some Lucanian relatives of one of the girls. On the 7th, they would go to a birthday party where they would be approached by two of the suspects, whom they had never seen before. Later, taking advantage of a few more glasses that the two fifteen years drank, other boys would have approached them. At one point, one of them was forcibly pushing one of the fifteen-year-olds into a dark area at the back of the villa, followed by the other three and the other girl. Thus, there were two different sexual violence against minors which, according to the reconstruction, lasted for about 15 minutes, until the group of 8 people left the place, followed a few minutes later by the minors. Hence the arrests because “the brutality, gravity and savagery of the violence committed in a subtle way could have been repeated against other women.” The two girls, according to the Argentine prosecutor’s account, “after the violence they returned to the place of the party, they found their thirty-year-old older sister with whom they had arrived at that place, they locked themselves in the bathroom with her and told her everything” . and once they got home they called 118 ».