- Raffaele Meola was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in March 2018.
A judge has sparked fury in Italy for allowing a man to grope a flight attendant because the 20 seconds it took him to react to the alleged attack were “too long”.
Raffaele Meola, who was a union official at the time, was accused of sexually assaulting the woman in March 2018.
The airline employee reportedly went to Mr Meola’s offices in Malpensa, northern Italy, to seek help over a labor dispute.
Milan’s appeals court acquitted Mr Meola of sexual violence allegations after a previous trial in 2022 also cleared him on similar grounds – with the verdict then suggesting that the woman’s reaction to the alleged assault wasn’t fast enough.
Women’s rights activists and the women’s legal team criticized the outcome, calling it a decades-long delay, and vowed to fight it.
The airline employee reportedly went to Raffaele Meola’s offices to seek help regarding a labor dispute.
His lawyer said after the verdict: “We will appeal to the Supreme Court because this sentence takes us back 30 years.
They added that this went against the precedent of the Supreme Court which “has declared for more than ten years that a sexual act, committed suddenly without ensuring the consent of the woman, is a crime of sexual violence and must be judged as such.
Jury forewoman Nicoletta Guerrero said “the victim was believed” but that there was not enough evidence to support the allegations.
During the alleged assault, according to the previous trial, Mr. Meola was standing behind the woman when he put his hands on her.
He allegedly touched, kissed and massaged her while the woman, for about thirty seconds, “continued to browse and read the documents without expressing disagreement.”
The court heard that the woman’s “reaction time” allegedly led Mr Meola to “misunderstanding his colleague’s wishes”, il Fatto Quotidiano reported at the time.
Milan’s appeals court acquitted Mr Meola of allegations of sexual violence after a previous trial in 2022 also exonerated him. Pictured: The archive image shows the Milan Court of Justice
Lawyer Teresa Manente responded to the 2022 verdict by saying it was “permeated with gender bias, once again placing the blame for the crime on the woman.”
Speaking to Corriere Della Sera, the alleged victim reacted to the previous verdict: “Doesn’t a woman have the right to remain petrified and paralyzed in the face of harassment?”
Elisa Ercoli, president of women’s rights group Differenza donna, said the most recent verdict proves that Italy’s sexual assault laws “cause serious and ongoing institutional violence” and called for an “urgent” review of these laws.
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