Ex-soldier's conviction for brutal rape upheld

(ANSA) - Rome, January 9 - Italy's supreme Court of Cassation on Friday upheld the rape and battery conviction of former military corporal Francesco Tuccia for the brutal 2011 attack on a student outside a club in Abruzzo.
    On the night between February 11 and 12 that year, Tuccia, then 21, violently raped the victim, then 22 years old, outside a club called Guernica in the town of Pizzoli, near L'Aquila.
    He left the victim unconscious, bleeding heavily and almost naked in the snow, where prosecutors say she most certainly would have died in sub-zero temperatures that night, had a doorman from the club not found her in time.
    Italy's top court upheld the verdict but reduced the original sentence, from eight years to seven years and eight months behind bars.
    A L'Aquila court in December 2013 had found Tuccia guilty of rape and battery aggravated by cruelty.