Italian police on Tuesday identified
and cited a 31-year-old Roman man who allegedly attacked a
kissing gay couple at a Rome metro station on February 26.
The man has a criminal record for petty offences, police said.
He was identified thanks to CCTV by airport police in Venice
where he had had a verbal row with a woman earlier that day.
He has been accused of aggravated wounding.
The attack involved a gay activist, Gaynews and Gaynet Roma said
Sunday night.
The man, Jean Pierre Moreno, was attacked along with his
boyfriend at the Valle Aurelia station.
Gaynews quoted Moreno as saying: "While I and my boyfriend were
kissing, we suddenly heard a man shout from the other platform.
'What are you doing? Aren't you ashamed?'.
After answering 'What do you care?' and having started kissing
my boyfriend again, the guy crossed the tracks and reached us,
hitting my boyfriend in the eye first."
Gaynet posted a video showing the attacker going onto to hit the
pair with kicks and punches.
Equal Opportunities Minister Elena Bonetti, centre-left
Democratic Party (PD) leader Enrico Letta, Lazio Governor Nicola
Zingaretti and populist 5-Star Movement (M5S) Senator Alessandra
Maiorino voiced solidarity with the victims and insisted on the
need to pass a bill filed by PD MP Pd Alessandro Zan which ups
penalties against gay bashing.
Zan himself said "there is an urgent need to approve a law that
exists in almost all Western countries".
But the nationalist League party disagreed saying the attack
"should not be exploited for political ends".
The anti-migrant Euroskeptic party led by former interior
minister Matteo Salvini argues that existing penalties against
violence are enough for gay bashing and it should not be an
aggravating factor.
Ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia (FI)
party also said the Zan bill went too far, allegedly
piggybacking a transgender agenda onto a measure that should be
limited to criminal law.
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