Milan prosecutors on Monday
requested a prison term of nine years for Severino Antinori, the
'granny baby' gynecologist suspected of taking eight eggs from a
Spanish nurse without her permission in April 2016.
Summing up in the trial, the second one stemming form the
case, prosecutors Maura Ripamonti and Leonardo Lesti asked the
court not to grant attenuating circumstances to the doctor
"because of his leading role in the affair and because he is the
protagonist of serious crimes".
In October, in a separate part of the case, a Milan judge
ordered prosecutors to present charges of slander against the
Spanish nurse who filed a formal complaint against Antinori,
accusing him of forcibly removing her eggs.
The woman allegedly "falsely accused, through a formal
complaint-lawsuit" the Roman doctor, the judge said.
Antinori was 70 years old at the time he was indicted in July
2016 on charges filed by the by the 24-year-old nurse, who was
being treated at his Milan clinic for an ovarian cyst.
The woman told police she was bound, sedated, forced to
undergo removal of her eggs and deprived of her cell phone
throughout the procedure.
His trial began in November of that year.
In February 2017 he was sentenced to three and a half years
in prison for extortion but was acquitted of the charges of
association to commit a crime related to the sale of gametes.
Antinori shot to worldwide fame in 1994 when his pioneering
fertility techniques made a 63-year-old woman become the oldest
ever to have given birth.
He called his indictment "a persecution".
Reacting to Monday's nine-year request, Antinori said "I have
suffered an injustice, worse than torture".
"I've been dragged through the mud in an ignoble fashion".
Antinori said prosecutor Ripamonti was a "persecutor of an
innocent man, flying in the face of blatant evidence".
He added: "Luckily I have faith in the magistrature and in
the right section of Milan's penal court, in the appeals court
and in the (supreme) Court of Cassation".
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